bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Stable seroprevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in children during 1989−1999 in Taipei, Taiwan
Authors: Lee I‐Hsien , Ni Yen‐Hsuan , Chang Mei‐Hwei 
Published: May 2004

Abstract
Background
: Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is thought to be acquired in childhood. The present study aimed to examine the changing seroepidemiology of H. pylori in children in the same area of Taipei city during 1989−1999, and to try to elucidate the possible transmission route of H. pylori in children by comparing hepatitis A virus (HAV) seroprevalence in Taipei during the same decade.
Methods
: Sera were collected from the apparently healthy children (965 males and 835 females, aged 0−20 years) from the Chung Cheng District of Taipei city. H. pylori infection status was checked by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).
Results
: In 1999, the overall prevalence rate of H. pylori infection was 14.8% with no gender difference (P = 0.115). Children aged 1−3 years had the lowest prevalence rate (2.8%). The prevalence rate then increased steadily after 3 years of age. The annual infection rate was 1.25% after 3 years of age and the seroprevalence rate was 21.5% at 15−18 years. In comparison with the previous H. pylori seroepidemiology study performed at the same district of Taipei city one decade ago, there is no significant cohort effect in H. pylori prevalence in Taipei children during the past decade (Odds ratio = 1.13; 95% confidence interval: 0.74−1.72). The epidemiological pattern between H. pylori and HAV was found to be different.
Conclusion
: The seroprevalence of H. pylori in children did not change significantly in the past decade. This epidemiological feature is different from HAV. The authors propose that there are other transmission routes of H. pylori than fecal−oral.
Investor Protections and Concentrated Ownership: Assessing Corporate Control Mechanisms in the Netherlands
Authors: Chirinko Robert , Garretsen Harry , Ees Hans van , Sterken Elmer 
Published: May 2004

AbstractThe Berle-Means problem - information and incentive asymmetries disrupting relations between knowledgeable managers and remote investors - has remained a durable issue engaging researchers since the 1930s. However, the Berle- Means paradigm - widely dispersed, helpless investors facing strong, entrenched managers - is under stress in the wake of the cross-country evidence presented by La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer and Vishny, and their legal approach to corporate control. This paper continues to investigate the roles of investor protections and concentrated ownership by examining firm behaviour in the Netherlands. Our within-country analysis generates two key results. First, the role of investor protections emphasized in the legal approach is not sustained. Rather, firm performance is enhanced when the firm is freed of equity market constraints. Second, ownership concentration does not have a discernible impact on firm performance, which may reflect large shareholders’ dual role in lowering the costs of managerial agency problems but raising the agency costs of expropriation.
Ownership Concentration and Share Valuation
Authors: Edwards Jeremy S. S. , Weichenrieder Alfons J. 
Published: May 2004

AbstractConcentrated ownership of large listed companies is widespread throughout the world, and Germany is typical in this respect. This paper proposes a method of distinguishing empirically between the beneficial and harmful effects of ownership concentration, and applies it to German data. The results show that, for most types of largest shareholder, the beneficial effects on minority shareholders of increased ownership (greater monitoring of management, and reduced incentives to exploit minority shareholders due to greater cash-flow rights) are at least as large as, and sometimes significantly larger than, the harmful effect (greater private benefits of control due to greater control rights).
Transfer Pricing and Hold-Ups in Supply Chains
Authors: Böckem Sabine , Schiller Ulf 
Published: May 2004

Abstract
We reconsider the hold-up problem under symmetric information when more than two parties form a ‘supply chain’. The parties are assumed to renegotiate bilaterally and sequentially. Potential trade distortions then arise in addition to the usual investment problem. Following Edlin and Reichelstein (1995, 1996), we consider fixed-quantity contracts. First-best allocations are shown to be attainable if the parties are able to commit to a ‘forced-compliance’ regime where a central office monitors the consistency of the bilateral renegotiations.
Are Transition Countries Overbanked? The Effect of Institutions on Bank Market Entry
Authors: Hainz Christa 
Published: May 2004

AbstractThe popular notion that transition countries are overbanked is challenged in this paper. We study the decision for market entry and the optimal number of banks in a Salop model. We show that the amount of collateral, which is necessary to solve the moral hazard problem of finance, depends on the distance between bank and firm as well as the quality of the institutional environment. We analyze how the number of banks decreases as the institutional environment improves. Moreover, we find that market entry is insufficient because new entrants do not consider thoroughly the positive effects of their entry decision on social welfare.
The Pro‐Life Argument from Substantial Identity: A Defence
Authors: Lee Patrick 
Published: May 2004

ABSTRACTThis article defends the following argument: what makes you and I valuable so that it is wrong to kill us now is what we are (essentially). But we are essentially physical organisms, who, embryology reveals, came to be at conception/fertilisation. I reply to the objection to this argument (as found in Dean Stretton, Judith Thomson, and Jeffrey Reiman), which holds that we came to be at one time, but became valuable as a subject of rights only some time later, in virtue of an acquired characteristic. I argue against this position that the difference between a basic, natural capacity and some degree of development of such a capacity is a mere difference in degree, that this position logically implies the denial of equal personal dignity, and that the selection of the required degree of development of a capacity is necessarily arbitrary.
Essential Properties and the Right to Life: A Response to Lee
Authors: Stretton Dean 
Published: May 2004

ABSTRACTIn ‘The Pro‐Life Argument from Substantial Identity: A Defence’, Patrick Lee argues that the right to life is an essential property of those that possess it. On his view, the right arises from one's ‘basic’ or ‘natural’ capacity for higher mental functions: since human organisms have this capacity essentially, they have a right to life essentially. Lee criticises an alternative view, on which the right to life arises from one's ‘developed’ capacity for higher mental functions (or development of some other accidental property). I argue that his criticisms of this alternative view are misguided or self‐defeating, and that there are good reasons to hold we have a right to life accidentally rather than essentially.
Aging, Public Budgets, and the Need for Policy Reform
Authors: Elmeskov Jørgen 
Published: May 2004

AbstractProjections show that, without policy changes, population aging will lead to unsustainable developments in public budgets. Various policy options to address this challenge are reviewed. Particular emphasis is given to the incentives to retire early and the programs that generate these incentives. The requirements for labor markets to absorb an added supply of older workers are discussed.
Reform of European Merger Policy
Authors: Lyons Bruce R. 
Published: May 2004

AbstractThe paper highlights the main drivers for merger policy reform in the European Union, including the consequences of the recent appeal court reverses. It discusses some of the substantive and procedural issues that the reform package should address, and outlines the reforms in progress. The author concludes that much of the reform package will be beneficial, but some important opportunities have been missed in this inevitably patchwork process.
Iceland: Searching for Democracy along Three Dimensions of Citizen Control
Authors: Kristjánsson Svanur 
Published: May 2004

This article scrutinises delegation and accountability in Iceland. In a healthy democracy, the representatives serve the wishes and interests of the main principal, the people. In an ailing democracy, the agents of the people primarily serve themselves.The main conclusions are as follows. First, the semi‐presidential constitutional framework places the voters in a central role. They vote in two systems, electing MPs in the parliamentary system and the president by a national vote. The open primary, adopted by the main political parties, gives the voters the opportunity to participate in the selection of candidates in parliamentary elections. The central role of the voters is, however, often made difficult by the fluctuation and complexity of this dual system of representation. Second, citizen control through party organisations and party membership has all but disappeared. Instead, political parties cater to the fickle electorate and produce government policy aiming at economic stability and economic growth. Third, external constraints – the political presidency, judicial activism and Iceland's membership of the European Economic Area – all weigh in and sometimes override decisions reached by the parliamentary system of government.The final conclusion is that the Icelandic system of governance has become a rather messy and complicated political arrangement, thereby resembling the situation in other modern democracies.
A Single EU Seat in the IMF?
Authors: Smaghi Lorenzo Bini 
Published: May 2004

AbstractThis article examines the rationale for consolidating EU Member States' position in the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Although a substantial amount of co‐ordination already takes place, particularly on issues related to the euro area and the single monetary and exchange rate policy, co‐operation between EU countries in the IMF remains a relatively new phenomenon and divergences still prevail. The current institutional set‐up, whereby the 15 EU countries are spread in nine constituencies, undermines effectiveness. Al though there is scope for further improving co‐operation, there are natural limits to what can be achieved within the existing co‐operation frame work. A single EU constituency would enable EU Member States to have a strong impact on IMF policies, potentially as strong as that of the US. However, this may not be an objective for all EU countries in the current conjuncture.
Negotiating Transparency: The Role of Institutions
Authors: Bjurulf Bo , Elgström Ole 
Published: May 2004

AbstractOn 30 May 2001, a new regulation on public access to EU documents was presented and was heralded in the European press as a breakthrough for transparency. We argue that a focus on institutions can cast light on the negotiation processes that led to this decision, and explain the final–for realist negotiation theory puzzling–outcome. We demonstrate the importance of institutions in EU negotiations by detailing actor interests and strategies in the transparency case, and by tracing and analysing the negotiation process that resulted in the regulation. The institutions that receive particular attention are: agenda‐shaping rules, decision‐making procedures and voting rules, informal norms, time tables and deadlines, and intervention by institutional actors.
Eastern European Attitudes to Integration with Western Europe
Authors: Caplanova Anetta , Orviska Marta , Hudson John 
Published: May 2004

AbstractThis article examines attitudes to membership of the EU and Nato amongst countries in central and eastern Europe. Sample survey data are obtained from the Eurobarometer surveys of transition and EU candidate countries. The empirical results suggest that support for membership increases with socio‐economic variables such as in come and education, reflecting self‐interest. But attitudinal variables are also important and, in particular, confidence in the free market economy impacts positively on support for membership. Support for EU membership is not a mirror image of that for Nato, with the differences appearing to revolve around self‐interest.
Accounting, Auditing and Corporate Governance of European Listed Countries: EU Policy Developments Before and After Enron
Authors: Dewing Ian P. , Russell Peter O. 
Published: May 2004

AbstractThis article provides an overview of EU policy developments in accounting, auditing and corporate governance before and after the collapse of Enron. For EU policy‐makers the article identifies areas for both encouragement and concern. It concludes that considerable progress has been made towards the harmonization of accounting, auditing and corporate governance within the context of the Financial Services Action Plan. However, it can be argued that, to achieve this, the EU has given too much ground to US hegemony, whether by embracing US practice masquerading as international ‘best practice’, or being forced to accept US practice where the US chooses to act unilaterally.
Competition Policy in Central Eastern Europe in the Light of EU Accession
Authors: Hölscher Jens , Stephan Johannes 
Published: May 2004

AbstractThis study reviews the progress made in EU accession candidates on competition policy. The analysis shows that institution‐building and legislation are well under way and that anti‐trust practice is not too lax. Due to the diversity among the accession countries under review, the study finds that the strictly rule‐based frame work of the EU might not be the most favourable solution for some candidates: firstly, the small and open economies of most candidates make it particularly difficult to define the ‘relevant market’ in competition cases. Secondly, the traditionally intense vertical integration of production in accession states calls for a reassessment of ‘vertical restraints’. The policy implications of this study suggest that the EU competition task force should take a proactive, case‐by‐case approachvis‐à‐visits new members.
Europeanization of Central Government Administration in the Nordic States
Authors: Lægreid Per , Steinthorsson Runolfur Smari , Thorhallsson Baldur 
Published: May 2004

AbstractThis article examines the Europeanization of public administration in the Nordic countries, and explores the changes in central administration due to EU and European Economic Area (EEA)membership. The focus is on Sweden and Finland, which have recently joined the European Union, and Norway and Iceland, whose participation in European integration is based on the EEA agreement. The database is a survey conducted in all ministerial departments and directorates in the Nordic countries. There are significant differences in the adaptation patterns between EU members and EEA members, but also important differences between countries with the same form of affiliation to the EU. The adaptation pattern of the EEA member ship of Norway and Iceland seems to follow a somewhat different path. To understand this, we have to add structural factors such as the size of the public administration. The institutional context of the domestic administrative tradition and strategy also has to be taken into account.
Is the European Union in Need of a Competence Catalogue? Insights from Comparative Federalism
Authors: Swenden Wilfried 
Published: May 2004

AbstractThis article assesses the value of a detailed and rigid catalogue of competencies for curbing the process of European centralization and increasing the overall legitimacy of the EU. The article first details the reasons, and the actors who put the search for a catalogue of competencies on to the European agenda. Drawing from comparative federalism, it then lists five arguments why a detailed and rigid competence catalogue is neither feasible nor desirable. Finally, alternatives are provided leading to competence delimitation by other means. The main arguments are illustrated with reference to the European Convention's draft Constitutional Treaty.
The Incidental Fortress: The Single European Market and World Trade
Authors: Young Alasdair R. 
Published: May 2004

AbstractThe European Union's role in international trade contains two significant contradictions: first, although its trade policy, with some notable exceptions, is generally fairly liberal, it has been the respondent in a number of high‐profile trade disputes; second, al though a champion of multilateralism, the EU has had problems complying with World Trade Organization (WTO) judgments. I argue that these contradictions in the EU's trading persona are due to the internal dynamics of European policy‐making, which create ‘regulatory peaks’ where the member governments' rules diverge, and render the resulting rules difficult to alter.
Normative Dynamics and Strategic Interests in the EU's External Identity
Authors: Youngs Richard 
Published: May 2004

AbstractFocus on the ideational dimensions of the EU's international presence has unduly diverted attention away from the persistence of power politics instrumentalism. De spite general recognition that these elements co‐exist, analysis of EU external policies can benefit from a more precise exploration of how strategic calculation invests a broadly normative agenda with notable characteristics. The article demonstrates this in relation to the promotion of human rights. This sheds light on the way in which security concerns and normative values inform each other, and cautions against neglect of the strategic specificities to identity‐representation dynamics.
How much is enough and who says so?
Authors: Kelleher Con J. , Pleil Andreas M. , Reese Pat Ray , Burgess Somali Misra , Brodish Paul H. 
Published: May 2004

Background  One of the challenges of health‐related quality of life research is to translate statistically significant health‐related quality of life changes into interpretable clinical or medically important ones.Objective  To calculate the minimal important difference of the King's Health Questionnaire, a condition‐specific health‐related quality of life questionnaire for the assessment of men and women with lower urinary tract dysfunction.Methods  The King's Health Questionnaire was administered to patients suffering from overactive bladder enrolled in two multinational studies. Minimal important differences were calculated using an anchor‐based approach with both a global rating of patient‐perceived treatment benefit and one of perceived disease impact. A distribution‐based method using effect size was calculated for comparison purposes.Results  Minimal important difference values varied slightly with each method. Using the anchor‐based approach, the King's Health Questionnaire minimal important difference ranged between 5–10 points when the calculation factored out patients who reported no change and 6–12 points for patients who experienced a small improvement. The effect size method indicated a minimal important difference of 5 to 6 points for a small effect and 10 to 15 points for a medium effect.Conclusions  In the case of the King's Health Questionnaire, the anchor‐based approaches and the distribution‐based approach provide similar results. A change from baseline of at least 5 points on King's Health Questionnaire domains indicates a change that is meaningful to patients and is indicative of a clinically meaningful improvement in health‐related quality of life after treatment. Convergence of the estimates using different approaches should give us confidence in the values derived for the quality of life domains measured by the King's Health Questionnaire.
Soy, fat and other dietary factors in relation to premenstrual symptoms in Japanese women
Authors: Nagata Chisato , Hirokawa Kumi , Shimizu Natsuki , Shimizu Hiroyuki 
Published: May 2004

Objective  To evaluate the relations of intakes of soy, fat and other dietary components to premenstrual symptoms.Design  Cross sectional study.Setting  Three colleges and two nursing schools.Population  One hundred and eighty‐nine Japanese women aged 19 to 34 years.Methods  Intakes of nutrients and foods, including soy products and isoflavones, were estimated by a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire. Change in menstrual cycle symptoms were assessed by the Moos Menstrual Distress Questionnaire (MDQ).Main outcome measures  Spearman rank correlation of soy and other dietary factors with changes in MDQ scores between the follicular and the premenstrual phases after controlling for age, marital status, exercise, smoking status, age at menarche and number of days of bleeding.Results  Neither soy product nor isoflavone intake was significantly associated with change in MDQ score in the premenstrual phase. Intakes of total, saturated and monounsaturated fats were significantly correlated with change in scores for total MDQ and subscale ‘pain’ in the premenstrual phase after controlling for the covariates. Intake of cereals/potatoes/starches was significantly inversely correlated with a change in total MDQ score in the premenstrual phase.Conclusions  High intake of fats and low intake of foods with high concentration of carbohydrate may be associated with premenstrual symptoms.
A pilot study for a randomised controlled trial of waterbirth versus land birth
Authors: Woodward Joanne , Kelly Susan M. 
Published: May 2004

Objectives  To assess the feasibility of undertaking an adequately powered multicentre study comparing waterbirth with land birth. To assess whether women are willing to participate in such a trial and whether participation has a negative effect on their birthing experience.Design  A randomised controlled trial (RCT) with ‘preference arm’.Setting  District general hospital with 3600 deliveries annually.Population  Women with no pregnancy complications and no anticipated problems for labour/delivery.Methods  Women were recruited and randomised between 36 and 40 weeks of gestation. Comparison of randomised and ‘preference arm’ to assess any impact of randomisation on women's birthing experience.Main outcome measures  Data were collected at delivery concerning the labour, the pool water and baby's condition at birth and six weeks of age. The main outcome measures are means and standard deviation of cord O2, CO2, haemoglobin, haematocrit and base excess; medians and ranges of time to first breathe and cord pH; bacterial growth from pool water samples and neonatal swabs; and maternal satisfaction.Results  Eighty women participated—60 women were randomised. Twenty women participated in a non‐randomised ‘preference arm’. The babies randomised to a waterbirth demonstrated a significantly lower umbilical artery pCO2 (P= 0.003); however, it is recognised that this study is underpowered. Women were willing to participate and randomisation did not appear to alter satisfaction.Conclusion  This small study has shown that a RCT is feasible and demonstrated outcome measures, which can be successfully collected in an average delivery suite.