bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
U‐STITCHING SPLENORRAPHY TECHNIQUE: EXPERIMENTAL AND CLINICAL STUDY
Authors: Tsaroucha Alexandra K. , Pitiakoudis Michail S. , Chanos Georgios , Chiotis Anestis S. , Argyropoulou Paraskevi I. , Prassopoulos Panos , Simopoulos Constantinos E. 
Published: April 2005

Background:  The aim of the present study was to describe the laboratory development and the subsequent clinical utility of the U‐stitching technique for splenorraphy over the recent years in a general non‐trauma hospital. Patients with splenectomies and patients treated conservatively during the same time period, are also presented.Methods:  In the 15‐year period from September 1988 until September 2003, 65 patients were diagnosed with splenic injury following admission to 2nd Department of Surgery, Democritus University Hospital, after blunt abdominal trauma. During the first 3 years, 14 patients were admitted; one of them was treated conservatively and 13 had splenectomies. Because computed tomography (CT) was not available at that time, these 14 patients form a control group. During the remaining 12‐year period, 51 patients (39 male and 12 female; age, 4−82 years; mean, 31.1 years; SD, 19.7 years) were treated conservatively or surgically, either with splenectomy or with splenorraphy. Splenorraphy was performed using the U‐stitching technique. This alternative splenorraphy technique was first tested on experimental models at 2nd Department of Surgery, Democritus University Hospital, then followed by successful clinical application. The medical records for these patients were reviewed to extract the data for the present study.Results:  Thirty‐six patients (70.6% of 51 patients) were treated surgically; of these, 21 (41.2% of 51 patients) had splenectomy and 15 (29.4% of 51 patients) had splenorraphy. Non‐operative treatment was initially given to 15 patients (29.4% of 51 patients). Two of them had delayed rupture of the spleen and underwent splenectomy (at 8 and 40 days). The total number of preserved spleens was 28 of 51 (54.9%). None of the patients with conservative treatment or splenorraphy died. One patient with splenectomy died later from overwhelming sepsis.Conclusions:  Splenic salvage is now a treatment goal. If the patient is haemodynamically unstable and splenorraphy is possible, the U‐stitching technique is a promising approach.
ACCURACY OF COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY GUIDED CORE NEEDLE BIOPSY OF MUSCULOSKELETAL TUMOURS
Authors: Altuntas Altay O. , Slavin John , Smith Peter J. , Schlict Stephen M. , Powell Gerard J. , Ngan Sam , Toner Guy , Choong Peter F. M. 
Published: April 2005

Background:  The accurate diagnosis of musculoskeletal tumours is important for successful treatment. Image guided biopsy is gaining increasing acceptance for obtaining tissue for diagnosis. The aim of the present study is to assess the accuracy of computed tomography (CT)‐guided core needle biopsy of musculoskeletal tumours.Methods:  This is a retrospective study on a series of 127 patients with a musculoskeletal tumour. The biopsies were performed over a 4‐year period from 1998 to 2001. The accuracy of the CT‐guided core needle biopsy was determined by comparing the histology of the biopsy with the final histology of the specimen obtained at open biopsy or surgical resection of the tumour. The effective accuracy was determined by the accuracy of the biopsy to distinguish between a benign and malignant tumour.Results:  Computed tomography guided core needle biopsy in the present series has an overall accuracy of 80.3%. The effective accuracy as determined by a malignant versus benign lesion was 89%. There were 86 malignant tumours with a biopsy accuracy of 81.4% and there were 41 benign tumours with a biopsy accuracy of 78%. The positive predictive value (PPV) of a malignant tumour is 98.9% and the PPV of benign tumour 90.2%. The most common site of biopsy was from the femur and thigh, together accounting for 39.4% of the tumours. The most common tumours in this series were liposarcoma (n = 12), osteosarcoma (n = 11) and giant cell tumour (n = 11). There were no reported complications arising from the biopsy.Conclusion:  Computed tomography guided core needle biopsy is a safe and effective procedure that is important in the diagnosis and management of musculoskeletal tumours. It should be performed in a specialized institution with a multidisciplinary musculoskeletal tumour team.
EXPERIENCE WITH MUCOSAL MELANOMA OF THE NOSE AND PARANASAL SINUSES
Authors: Bridger Andrew G. , Smee David , Baldwin Michael A. R. , Kwok Bernard , Bridger G. Patrick 
Published: April 2005

Purpose:  Sinonasal mucosal melanoma is a rare and aggressive disease and its incidence does not mimic that of its cutaneous counterpart in the Australian population. The present study examines one unit's experience with the disease and proposes a treatment strategy. The significance of macroscopic widespread mucosal melanosis and histological melanoma in situ is considered in the present study to be crucial in overall survival and the main cause of local failure and is specifically addressed.Methods:  The present study represents the retrospective experience of the multidisciplinary Head and Neck Clinic at the Prince of Wales Hospital over a 30‐years period (from 1970 to end 1999) in the management of the disease, including both primary and salvage treatment approaches. The study includes 27 patients treated with surgery with or without postoperative radiation therapy. Management of recurrence was also considered.Results:  The mean time to local recurrence was 14.7 months and the mean time to distant metastases was 23.2 months. Mean survival time was 52 months and mean time from local recurrence to death was 75 months. Overall, disease free and disease specific survival and survival post‐recurrence were analysed by the Kaplan−Meir method. A cancer specific 5 years survival of 46% was achieved, which compares favourably with recent international series.Conclusion:  Sinonasal mucosal melanoma remains an aggressive disease with the possibility of local recurrence years after initial treatment, however, initial radical surgery encompassing the primary lesion and distant in situ or satellite disease and postoperative radiotherapy can offer long‐term control, as can reoperation for local recurrence where appropriate.
PERCUTANEOUS DRAINAGE AND NECROSECTOMY IN THE MANAGEMENT OF PANCREATIC NECROSIS
Authors: Cheung Moon‐Tong , Ho Candance Nga‐Sze , Siu Kam‐Wang , Kwok Philip Chong‐Hei 
Published: April 2005

Background:  The degree of necrosis and presence of infection are the crucial determinants of the outcome in patients with pancreatic necrosis. In patients with sterile necrosis, the necrotic material can persist and subsequently results in sepsis. Some of these patients will ultimately require an operation to remove the necrotic material. Percutaneous necrosectomy has been introduced to remove this residual debris in a minimally invasive way.Methods:  We retrospectively reviewed all patients with pancreatic necrosis who had percutaneous drainage (PCD) performed. Percutaneous pancreatic necrosectomy (PCPN) was done for those patients whose necrotic cavity failed to resolve.Results:  Percutaneous drainage was performed in eight patients, four with evidence of infection by the positive culture in the aspirate. In three of them, the necrotic cavity completely resolved after drainage. Percutaneous necrosectomy was performed in another three patients through the tract placed by the radiologist and another one through a sinus tract after an operation. The necrotic cavity in three of them completely resolved after percutaneous necrosectomy.Conclusion:  Those patients who had ‘organized necrosis’ after the acute episode of pancreatitis could receive benefit from percutaneous necrosectomy. The persistent symptoms could be alleviated after the removal of the residual necrotic material. It could also be useful after an open surgery to remove any residual devitalized tissue.
GALLSTONE ILEUS: RARE AND STILL CONTROVERSIAL
Authors: Kirchmayr Werner , Mühlmann Gilbert , Zitt Mathias , Bodner Johannes , Weiss Helmut , Klaus Alexander 
Published: April 2005

Background:  Gallstone ileus is a rare disease and accounts for about 1−3% of mechanic ileus of the small bowel, but for 25% of all small bowel obstructions in patients older than 65 years. Concomitant cardiorespiratory diseases or diabetes are frequent in older patients and responsible for the high mortality rate. The aim of the present study was to evaluate and discuss different surgical approaches and to analyze the clinical outcome.Methods:  Four patients with a mean age of 72 years were treated for gallstone ileus at our hospital in the last 10 years. Patients history, operative strategy and their outcome is elucidated and a review of the recent literature is given.Results:  In all patients the operative strategy was a one‐stage procedure including enterolithotomy, cholecystectomy and closure of the fistula. The 30‐day mortality rate was 25%.Conclusion:  One‐stage procedure prevents from cholangitis, cholecystitis and recurrent ileus caused by further gallstones but bears the risk of enteric or biliary leakage after fistula closure. It should therefore be reserved for patients presenting in good general condition with a low degree of cholecystitis.
Mask fear in children presenting for anesthesia: aversion, phobia, or both?
Authors: PRZYBYLO H.J. , TARBELL S.E. , STEVENSON G.W. 
Published: April 2005

SummaryBackground : Anesthesia induction in children is commonly accomplished by introducing volatile agents by mask. Occasionally a child describes an excessive fear of the anesthesia facemask. Little is known of the cause of the fear or of the quality or magnitude of the feelings the child is experiencing. The purpose of this study was to allow children who have established mask fear as demonstrated by volunteering the presence of fear and requesting no mask be placed on the face during the induction of anesthesia and their parents to describe and compare the distress from the mask to the alternative intravenous anesthesia induction.Methods : Eight children describing mask fear on the preanesthetic examination were studied. An Anesthesia Mask Fear questionnaire developed by the investigators was answered by the children and their parents.Results : Six children and their parents completed the study. The age at presentation of mask fear ranged from 1.4 to 14 years. There were one to 16 anesthetic exposures prior to reporting mask fear. One child described an aversion to the odor of the mask. Another boy developed mask fear after a single anesthetic exposure. He was subsequently diagnosed with a generalized anxiety disorder. Four female children developed mask fear after repeated anesthetic exposures. These children rated mask fear with the greatest discomfort possible while venous cannulation was scored at half or less that of the mask discomfort.Conclusions : Care must be taken when developing a plan for anesthesia induction in children requiring multiple procedures. Children may develop an aversion to the odor or feel of the mask, or have a true phobia (irrational fear) of the mask. Those children with a phobia might also have other underlying anxieties.
Neuropathic pain following multilevel surgery in children with cerebral palsy: a case series and review
Authors: LAUDER G.R. , WHITE M.C. 
Published: April 2005

SummarySix children with cerebral palsy are presented who developed neuropathic pain following multilevel orthopedic surgery. This significant complication is previously unreported. The diagnosis and treatment options are reviewed. Treatment should be kept as simple and noninvasive as possible, and aim to enable physiotherapy to continue. Early recognition and interdisciplinary treatment is important to prevent a downward spiral of increasing pain and decreased function. A good outcome in respect of improved pain and functioning was achieved in five of these six children. It is our opinion that this complication should form part of informed consent for multilevel surgery and that anesthetists should be aware of this complication when managing postoperative pain control.
Child Growth, Shocks, and Food Aid in Rural Ethiopia
Authors: Yamano Takashi , Alderman Harold , Christiaensen Luc 
Published: April 2005

AbstractChild stunting in Ethiopia has persisted at alarming rates, despite enormous amounts of food aid, often procured in response to shocks. Using nationally representative data, the study finds that while harvest failure leads to child growth faltering, food aid affected child growth positively and offset the negative effects of shocks in communities that received food aid. However, many communities that experienced shocks did not receive food aid. In sum, while food aid has helped reduce child malnutrition, inflexible food aid targeting, together with endemic poverty and limited maternal education, has left the prevalence of child stunting at alarming levels.
Irrigation Technology Adoption and Gains from Water Trading under Asymmetric Information
Authors: Dridi Chokri , Khanna Madhu 
Published: April 2005

AbstractWe develop a water allocation and irrigation technology adoption model under the prior appropriation doctrine with asymmetric information among heterogeneous farmers and between farmers and water authorities. We find that adverse selection reduces the adoption of modern irrigation technology. We also show that even with asymmetric information, incentives for water trade exist and lead to additional technology adoption with gains to all parties. This suggests that under asymmetric information, a thin secondary market improves the allocation of water resources and induces additional adoption of modern irrigation technologies.
Aggregation over Firms under Mean Scaling
Authors: Coyle Barry T. 
Published: April 2005

AbstractThis paper analyzes aggregation over firms assuming mean scaling, i.e., the relative distribution of micro variables is independent of the distribution of the aggregates. We emphasize cost‐minimization models encompassing general functional forms and heterogeneity of outputs and technology across firms. Mean scaling implies that aggregate relations inherit properties of micro behavior. The mean scaling hypothesis is not rejected using annual time‐series data on wheat production for crop districts in Manitoba.
Risk Perceptions, Risk Preference, and Acceptance of Risky Food
Authors: Lusk Jayson L. , Coble Keith H. 
Published: April 2005

AbstractConsumers' risk preferences are often overlooked in studies of consumer demand for risky food. We find that risk preferences elicited through context‐less lottery choices are significantly related to consumers' stated preferences for genetically modified (GM) food. These results suggest risk preferences elicited in the laboratory are not artificial in the sense that they appear to be related to the same risk preferences that govern other individual decisions such as food choice. Consistent with theoretical expectations, risk perceptions and risk preferences were found to be significant determinants of acceptance of GM food, which has important implications for explaining consumer behavior.
Implications of Nash Bargaining for Horizontal Industry Integration
Authors: Just Richard E. , Mitra Siddhartha , Netanyahu Sinaia 
Published: April 2005

AbstractThis article shows how horizontal industry integration can arise from transferable asymmetry of technologies and endowments. The Nash bargaining solution suggests that greater technological diversity among coordinating parties yields greater gains from horizontal integration. The framework fits the case where a firm with a superior technology franchises the technology by horizontal integration. The results appear to fit hog production where integration has been primarily horizontal and, in part, broiler production where integration has been both vertical and horizontal. Specifically, technology has been shared through uniform genetic traits, fine‐tuned feed rations, and veterinary services specified in grower contracts.
Estimating the Structure of Market Reaction to News: Information Events and Lumber Futures Prices
Authors: Rucker Randal R. , Thurman Walter N. , Yoder Jonathan K. 
Published: April 2005

AbstractWe develop a new event‐study technique, the distributional event response model (DERM), appropriate to relatively slowly evolving information events. We apply the model to twelve years of daily lumber futures prices and analyze the effects of three different types of information releases: (a) monthly housing starts estimates, (b) aperiodic administrative and judicial announcements about U.S.‐Canada trade disputes, and (c) novel and unprecedented court decisions related to the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The information releases are different in ways that predict their relative speeds of impoundment in prices. We find that housing start events are absorbed more quickly than trade events, which are absorbed more quickly than ESA events.
Resisting Marginalisation: The Rise of the Rural Community Movement in Lithuania
Authors: Juska Arunas , Poviliunas Arunas , Pozzuto Richard 
Published: April 2005

AbstractIn the late 1990s the rural community development movement led mostly by educated, professional women emerged in Lithuania. These were loose organizations, typically made up of 5–10 core activists, engaged in mobilizing local communities in dealing with their social, cultural, political and economic problems. It is argued that the rise of the rural community movement represents one of the responses to the post‐socialist crisis in agriculture as well as a strategy in dealing with growing economic, political, and social marginalization of the rural population in Lithuania. Three interacting developments that contributed to the rise of rural civic activism are analyzed: (a) structural change in the rural economy that lead to a growing stratum of rural population being displaced from commodity agriculture; (b) favorable political opportunity created by the completion of collective farm privatization and the advancement of the process of land restitution, changes in the government's policy, and the rise of NGOs activism supported, in part, by the foreign donors; and (c) innovative strategies and alliances formed by activists, foreign donors, academicians, and local politicians in promoting rural development. Ethnographic research in the village of Balninkai (pop. 496) is used to analyze the dynamics of building of one of the most successful rural community organizations currently active in Eastern Lithuania.
Rural Pluriactivity as a Coping Strategy in Small‐Scale Fisheries
Authors: Salmi Pekka 
Published: April 2005

AbstractThis paper focuses on different variations of pluriactivity in small‐scale fishermen's households and how these are connected to the life‐mode and survival strategies of the fishermen. Special attention is given to the diversification of household economy, fishermen's attitudes towards their work and the support from other stakeholder groups. The empirical material comprises of personal interviews conducted with fishermen in the Archipelago Sea Region, SW Finland. Throughout the centuries fishing, shipping, and agriculture have been combined and interlinked in the region. The pluriactivity nature of the livelihoods is still important, but the combinations have changed. New forms of pluriactivity have provided a basis for adaptation of commercial fishing in the changing conditions of existence. In spite of the common economic adaptation through wage‐work, the cultural dimensions of the fisherman‐peasant life‐mode still hold a strong position.
Alternative Job Search Strategies in Remote Rural and Peri‐urban Labour Markets: The Role of Social Networks
Authors: Lindsay Colin , Greig Malcolm , McQuaid Ronald W. 
Published: April 2005

AbstractThis paper examines the importance of informal methods (especially social networking) to the job search strategies used by unemployed people. It compares three areas: a small rural town; a larger, more sparsely populated, remote rural area; and a centrally‐located, peri‐urban labour market. The analysis is based first on survey research undertaken with 490 job seekers across the study areas. Emerging issues were then followed up during a series of twelve focus groups. The survey research showed that job seekers in the rural study areas were significantly more likely to use social networks to look for work. However, those who had experienced repeated or long‐term periods out of work, the unskilled and young people were significantly less likely to use such networks. Focus groups confirmed the perceived importance of social networking to the job search process in rural areas, in contrast to the more marginal role such methods appear to play in peri‐urban settings. For many rural job seekers, formal job search activities conducted through Jobcentres were seen as largely symbolic, lacking the practical value of social networking. These results suggest that service providers seeking to assist unemployed people in rural areas need to address the problems faced by many disadvantaged job seekers who are currently caught between their lack of social network relations and the absence of local public employment service facilities in more remote communities.
Farm and Off‐farm Work and Life Satisfaction Among Norwegian Farm Women
Authors: Haugen Marit S. , Blekesaune Arild 
Published: April 2005

AbstractPrevious research has showed that farmers and spouses having off‐farm work report higher life satisfaction than those who work only on the farm. Using both quantitative and qualitative data we test this correlation and ask whether there are other factors than just the off‐farm work which might explain this. Data from a national survey, involving 935 farm women, and in‐depth interviews with twenty‐five farm women, are used to explore the relation between work situation and life satisfaction. The analysis shows that farm women's work situations are diverse and might vary during different life phases. Although women having an off‐farm job express higher satisfaction with their lives than those who work mainly on‐farm, the correlation between work situation and life quality is complex. The analysis indicates that farm women's health status influences both their work situation and their life satisfaction. This implies that it is not only the work situation per se which influences life satisfaction, but rather conditions affecting women's opportunities to make free choices regarding their work situation.
Biodynamic Farmers in Ireland. Transforming Society Through Purity, Solitude and Bearing Witness?
Authors: McMahon Naoimh 
Published: April 2005

AbstractThe organic movement is hailed as a way of transforming industrial agriculture making it more ecologically sensitive. This paper explores, from a sociology of knowledge perspective, how biodynamic farmers' understandings are the basis for influencing a wider population. I argue that their relationship to their farming and ‘Others’ resembles a form of religious life defined by asceticism, repetition, sacrifice, and an emphasis on spiritualism and purity. Their reserved relationships with the outside world, particularly in communicating their ideas on agriculture meanwhile recall the search for solitude of religious hermits. They reject a strategy of direct proselytising as attempting to persuade may involve compromises, it would mean revealing their difference and alienating themselves further from the wider community, and some of them question their ability to influence people and wider systems. On one level they want to maintain the purity of their ideals and farming practices, on another, they don't want to be made to feel too different. They take on the role of trying to change the wider agricultural system through example and ‘bearing witness’ to the ideas of biodynamics.