bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Gabapentin Normalizes Spinal Neuronal Responses That Correlate with Behavior in a Rat Model of Cancer-induced Bone Pain
Authors: Donovan-Rodriguez Tansy , Dickenson Anthony H. , Urch Catherine E. 
Published: December 2004

Background
Cancer-induced bone pain is a major clinical problem for which current treatments lack full efficacy. Gabapentin is licensed for use in neuropathic pain yet is also effective against inflammatory stimuli in animals.

Methods
A rat model of cancer-induced bone pain using the MRMT-1 cell line injected into the tibia was established to investigate the efficacy of acute (10, 30, 100 mg/kg) and chronic (30 mg/kg) systemic gabapentin on electrophysiological superficial dorsal horn neuronal responses to natural and noxious electrical stimuli, as well as on pain-related behavior.

Results
In electrophysiological studies gabapentin worked both acutely (100 mg/kg) and chronically (30 mg/kg) to normalize the hyperexcitable superficial dorsal horn neuronal response, significantly reducing electrical-evoked and mechanical-evoked but not thermal-evoked responses. The behavioral study showed that chronic gabapentin (30 mg/kg) significantly attenuated pain behavior in MRMT-1 rats, restoring responses to preoperative baseline degrees, and that this attenuation was accompanied by a reversion to normal (non-MRMT-1) wide-dynamic-range: nociceptive specific superficial dorsal horn neuronal profiles.

Conclusions
Pain-related behavior in this rat model of cancer-induced bone pain is strongly linked to hyperexcitability of a population of superficial dorsal horn neurones. Gabapentin normalizes the cancer-induced bone pain induced dorsal horn neuronal changes and attenuates pain behavior. It may therefore provide a novel clinical treatment for cancer-induced bone pain.
Changes in Response Properties and Receptive Fields of Spinal Dorsal Horn Neurons in Rats after Surgical Incision in Hairy Skin
Authors: Kawamata Mikito , Koshizaki Masayuki , Shimada Steven G. , Narimatsu Eichi , Kozuka Yuji , Takahashi Toshiyuki , Namiki Akiyoshi , Collins J G. 
Published: December 2004

Background
Mechanical hyperalgesia and allodynia associated with chemical irritant application are mediated by spinal high-threshold (HT) as well as wide-dynamic-range neurons as a result of "central sensitization." Because the pathophysiology of pain is thought to differ depending on the type of injury and may vary between hairy and glabrous skin, the authors examined changes in properties of spinal dorsal horn neurons after surgical incisions in hairy skin of rats to obtain insights into the mechanisms of postoperative pain.

Methods
Withdrawal responses to punctate mechanical stimulation and gentle brushing were measured in awake rats in an area adjacent to the injured site (primary area) and in an area 2 cm from the injured site (secondary area) after 1-cm longitudinal incisions through the hairy skin, fascia, and muscle had been made in the hindquarters. In a separate study, responses of spinal wide-dynamic-range, HT, and low-threshold neurons to nonnoxious and noxious stimuli were recorded before and after similar incisions had been made in the centers of their receptive fields. Effects of spinal application of the gamma-aminobutyric acid A receptor antagonist bicuculline (15 microg) on responses of HT neurons were then studied.

Results
Awake rats showed primary and secondary hyperalgesia to punctate mechanical stimulation 30 min after the incision and thereafter for 4 days and 1 day, respectively. Mechanical allodynia associated with brush stimulation was only seen in the primary area 30 min after the incision and thereafter for 1 day. The incision resulted in increases in activity of wide-dynamic-range neurons (receptive field sizes and responses to both innocuous and noxious stimuli). HT neurons did not respond to innocuous stimulation and showed very small increases or no changes in receptive field size and responses to noxious stimuli after the incision. However, the majority of HT neurons began to respond to innocuous stimuli after application of bicuculline (15 microg/50 microl) to the spinal cord.

Conclusions
The results suggest that wide-dynamic-range neurons are responsible for behavioral hyperexcitability after surgical incision but that HT neurons are not involved in the hyperexcitability, despite the fact that HT neurons are capable of responding to innocuous stimuli by reversal of gamma-aminobutyric acid-mediated inhibition.
Influence of Obesity on Surgical Regional Anesthesia in the Ambulatory Setting: An Analysis of 9,038 Blocks
Authors: Nielsen Karen C. , Guller Ulrich , Steele Susan M. , Klein Stephen M. , Greengrass Roy A. , Pietrobon Ricardo 
Published: December 2004

Background
Regional anesthesia is increasing in popularity for ambulatory surgical procedures. Concomitantly, the prevalence of obesity in the United States population is increasing. The objective of the present investigation was to assess the impact of body mass index (BMI) on patient outcomes after ambulatory regional anesthesia.

Methods
This study was based on prospectively collected data including 9,038 blocks performed on 6,920 patients in a single ambulatory surgery center. Patients were categorized into three groups according to their BMI (<25 kg/m2, 25-29 kg/m2, > or =30 kg/m2). Block efficacy, rate of acute complications, postoperative pain (at rest and with movement), postoperative nausea and vomiting, rate of unscheduled hospital admissions, and overall patient satisfaction were assessed. Linear and logistic multivariable analyses were used to obtain the risk-adjusted effect of BMI on these outcomes.

Results
Of all patients 34.8% had a BMI <25 kg/m2, 34.0% were overweight (BMI 25-29 kg/m2), and 31.3% were obese (BMI > or = 30 kg/m2). Patients with BMI > or =30 kg/m2 were 1.62 times more likely to have a failed block (P = 0.04). The unadjusted rate of acute complications was higher in obese patients (P = 0.001). However, when compared with patients with a normal BMI, postoperative pain at rest, unanticipated admissions, and overall satisfaction were similar in overweight and obese patients.

Conclusions
The present investigation shows that obesity is associated with higher block failure and complication rates in surgical regional anesthesia in the ambulatory setting. Nonetheless, the rate of successful blocks and overall satisfaction remained high in patients with increased BMI. Therefore, overweight and obese patients should not be excluded from regional anesthesia procedures in the ambulatory setting.
Peter Härtlings Hoffmann Oder Die Vielfältige Liebe: Ein Plädoyer Für Mischa?
Authors: Röder Birgit 
Published: December 2004

AbstractIn bislang veröffentlichten Studien zur Biografie E.T.A. Hoffmanns kommt dessen Ehefrau Maria Thekla Michaelina Rorer‐Trzcinska eine höchst untergeordnete Rolle zu, und sie wird fast ausschließlich als durch und durch fantasielose Hausfrau aus dem Lager der Philister oder als duldsame leidgeprüfte Gefährtin des großen Exzentrikers gesehen. Im Gegensatz zu dieser Sichtweise, die sich zum Teil in grotesken, wissenschaftlich unhaltbaren Klischeevorstellungen manifestiert, wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit der Versuch unternommen, diese verzerrte Vorstellung von Mischa neu zu überdenken, und bisher ungestellte Fragen nach der Richtigkeit dieser Interpretationsweise aufzuwerfen. Dabei werden einerseits biografische Fakten zu Rate gezogen, andererseits aber auch Hoffmanns Werk, d. h. dessen fiktionale Darstellung von Liebesbeziehungen untersucht. Abschließend folgt eine Analyse von Peter Härtlings ‘Romanze’Hoffmann oder Die vielfältige Liebe, in der dem Leser – auf überzeugende, wenngleich auf fiktionale Weise – eine Mischa vorgestellt wird, die wesentlich an Charakter und Persönlichkeit gewinnt. Dabei wird die traditionelle Klischeevorstellung von Hoffmanns Ehefrau, aber ebenso die leidenschaftliche Beziehung Hoffmanns zu seiner Gesangsschülerin Julia Mark, in Frage gestellt. Darüber hinaus bietet Härtling eine herausfordernde Alternative an, indem er beiden Frauen (besonders aber Mischa) eine eigene Stimme bzw. Perspektive gewährt.
The estate of merchants in the parliament of 1381
Authors: Liddy Christian D. 
Published: December 2004

Abstract
The discovery among the class of ancient petitions in the Public Record Office of two documents containing lists of members of two parliamentary committees throws new light on the role of the urban element in the medieval English parliament, about which the parliament rolls say very little. This article places the two lists, undated but almost certainly of 1381, in the immediate context of the response of the political community to the Peasants' Revolt, and explores the idea of an estate of merchants meeting in parliament in the second half of the fourteenth century.
Honour and duty at sea, 1660–1815
Authors: Rodger N. A. M. 
Published: December 2004

Abstract
This article looks at the changing meaning of the concepts of honour and duty among sea officers over the ‘long eighteenth century’. As gentlemen and as fighting men, sea officers felt particularly close to the concept of honour; but as members of a skilled, semi–bourgeois profession which was substantially open to talent, they were seen by others as being on the margins of gentility. The rise of the middle–class virtues of duty and service in public esteem at the end of the century, benefited the sea officers by making their long–standing combination of honour and duty fashionable.
James Rogers and the Bristol slave trade*
Authors: Morgan Kenneth 
Published: December 2004

Abstract
This article examines the business failure of James Rogers, a large Bristol slave trader, within the context of the operation of the late British slave trade in west Africa, on the Middle Passage, and in the Caribbean. Based on a large cache of surviving manuscripts, the article shows that the credit crisis of 1793 led to the demise of Rogers's mercantile career but also that his business collapse stemmed from over-extending his slave trading activities, from relatively poor profit levels, and from attempts to expand his trading portfolio in the eighteen months before the national financial crash.
Executions following Monmouth's rebellion: a missing link
Authors: Timmons Stephen A. 
Published: December 2004

Abstract
The number of executions that the royal army carried out immediately following Monmouth's rebellion in July 1685 has always puzzled scholars. Contemporary sources offer little assistance: loyalist tories largely ignored the problem, while opposition whigs exaggerated both the number of hangings and the degree of sadism involved. A comparison between parish burial records in Somerset and a hitherto unnoticed document in the British Library (Additional MS. 32000 fos. 91–2) indicates that Colonel Kirke of the First Tangiers Regiment precisely followed orders given by Lieutenant-General Lord Feversham, and even offered mercy to some victims.
Medical Confidentiality and Disclosure: Moral Conscience and Legal Constraints
Authors: Tur Richard H.S. 
Published: December 2004

I argue that the duty of confidentiality is relative, not absolute; and that it is primarily a matter for the professional judgment of the reflective health practitioner to determine in the particular case whether competing public interests (or other compelling reasons) override that duty. I have supported that account with an analysis of medical practice as a recourse role and with an account of law that emphasises not only its duty‐imposing character but also, and crucially, an embedded liberty to depart from the plain requirements of a primary legal rule where in the conscientious judgment of the addressee of that law, there is ‘damn good reason’ to do so. This account of the moral nullification of law at the outer limits appears to be descriptively accurate over a wide range of law and normatively appealing not only to democratic citizens but also to professionals such as doctors and lawyers whose role involves testing the law on moral grounds and who should be ready to do so, if but only if, they believe in the good faith exercise of professional judgment that the outcome mandated by the literal application of the legal rule is inconsistent with the moral mission of their role.The argument is illustrated with cases from American and English courts which, perhaps, render plausible the otherwise paradoxical notion that the law itself admits of departures from the legal rules.
The political economy of intergovernmental grants: The Norwegian case
Authors: Sørensen Rune J. 
Published: December 2004

AbstractThe centralization of local public finance is commonly justified in terms of equality. The welfare state regulates local government and allocates grants in a way that sacrifices efficiency to achieve equality. The political economy model suggests that democratically elected national politicians may pursue policies that diverge from this. This article outlines a version of the political economy model based on seat‐maximizing politicians in central and local government. Both parliamentary policy making and local government lobbying may generate disparities in grant allocation. On the basis of data on central grant distribution in Norway, we observe persistent disparities in local government revenues that cannot be accounted for by regional policy aims or egalitarian objectives. Extensive data on local governments, the lobbying activities of local council members and the Storting (the Norwegian Parliament) allows us to test the political economy hypotheses. Disparities in the number of seats allocated to the national election districts, and differences in the local lobbying activities, influence the distribution of grants between municipalities and counties.
Europeanisation, mesogovernments and ‘safety nets’
Authors: Moreno Luis 
Published: December 2004

AbstractThis article examines two processes: the adaptation of national systems of social protection to operate within a European framework and the decentralisation of ‘safety net’ policies at the meso‐level in order to favour territorial subsidiarity and democratic accountability. It reviews the concepts and assumptions involved in welfare state research before moving on to reflect upon the so‐called ‘European social model’. Decentralisation and a greater regional say in areas of policy making closer to citizens' perceptions, such as the creation of ‘safety nets‘, have often been linked to cultural or identity considerations. However, demands are also based on claims for policy innovation and more effective management, as illustrated by Spain's devolution of welfare powers to the regions. This article concludes that in order to build up a macro‐community based on trust in the ‘Old Continent’, more attention should be paid to the increasing role of medium‐size layers of government.
Why Did Seattle Fail? Globalization and the Politics of Trade
Authors: Bayne Nicholas 
Published: December 2004

THE THIRD MINISTERIAL MEETING OF THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION (WTO), held in Seattle from 30 November to 3 December 1999, was a resounding failure. It was intended to launch a new round of multilateral trade negotiations, in succession to the Uruguay Round which had ended seven years before. But even before it could begin, the proceedings were disrupted by massive demonstrations. Central Seattle became a war zone, with tear gas and rubber bullets, and then a ghost town, with empty streets and boarded-up windows. Inside the conference hall the atmosphere was little better. The conference chair (Charlene Barshefsky, US Special Trade Representative) and the WTO Director-General (Mike Moore, new in office) were booed in open session. In the end, the ministerial meeting was suspended with nothing agreed, only an exhortation from the chair ‘to take time out’ in the hope of resolving disagreements and reconvening later.This article looks at what went wrong and why and what will be needed in future. It contrasts the failure at Seattle with the undoubted achievements of the international trade system in the 1990s. It examines three possible causes of failure: disruption by NGOs; organizational weakness in the WTO; and errors of government. Of these three, it finds governments most to blame. Governments generally, but especially the United States and the European Union, have not grasped the full extent of the demands placed on them by the advance of globalization. Seattle was a setback but need not be a disaster – provided governments correct the errors that allowed it to happen.
The Renewal of the Radical Right: Between Modernity and Anti‐modernity
Authors: Minkenberg Michael 
Published: December 2004

FIFTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER THE FALL OF FASCISM AND THE END OF THE Second World War, right-wing radical movements and parties are part of the political normalcy in many Western democracies. In the face of the twentieth-century experiences of fascism and state socialism, and their failures, this stubborn persistence seems at the same time anachronistic and frightening. While there is no shortage of explanations and interpretations of this phenomenon in an evergrowing body of literature, most studies focus on national trends and derive their criteria from country-specific histories and discourses. Serious comparative scholarship on the radical right is still in its infancy.This article is a plea for more comparative research on rightwing radicalism at the turn of the century. It begins by highlighting the three central dimensions of the problem. First, one must state that contemporary right-wing radicalism is an international phenomenon. Thus, more than before, comparative studies are needed both to analyse the international quality and to specify the nation-specific characteristics of the radical right in each country. Secondly, it must be borne in mind that contemporary right-wing radicalism is a modern phenomenon. It has undergone a phase of renewal, as a result of social and cultural modernization shifts in post-war Europe. Thus it is only vaguely connected with previous versions. Terms like ‘fascism’ or ‘neo-fascism’ which suggest a historical continuity from Munich to Mölln and Magdeburg in Germany, or from Vichy to Vitrolles in France, become increasingly obsolete. The third factor to bear in mind is that contemporary right-wing radicalism is a complex phenomenon. The ongoing specialization and compartmentalization in the social sciences, such as discourse analysis, party and electoral research, and youth sociology – to name but a few of the approaches applied to the radical right – fail to do justice to the complexity of the subject. Clearly, the many faces of right-wing radicalism require clear analytical distinctions, but ultimately they need to be approached in a truly interdisciplinary way.
Non‐Political Caretaker Administrations and Democratic Elections in Bangladesh: An Assessment
Authors: Zafarullah Habib , Akhter Muhammad Yeahia 
Published: December 2004

The transition to democracy in bangladesh after the overthrow of the authoritarian regime in 1990 began with the formation of a non-political caretaker administration (NCA) to prepare the ground for the transfer of power to a popularly mandated government. Its other important purpose was to manage the affairs of the state during the interlude that separated the dissolution of the authoritarian regime (December 1990) and the complete installation of the democratically-elected government (September 1991) to rule the country in its own right.The need for this NCA was imperative in the wake of the dismantling of authoritarian rule. The attempts of the ousted regime to conduct a third election, while still in power, were not acceptable to its political adversaries, given the former's proven tendency to unduly inf luence the electoral process in the past.
The Risk Game and the Blame Game
Authors: Hood Christopher 
Published: December 2004

Economists Say There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. The burgeoning ‘risk industry’ – no doubt set for further expansion after the terrorist attacks on US heartlands in 2001 – says there is no such thing as a risk-free lunch. Anthropologists say there is no such thing as a blame-free risk. And political scientists know blame is central to politics.The growth of the ‘risk industry’, the associated explosion in discussion of safety and hazard issues and the search for better ways of assessing and managing risk, has been much commented on. The BSE issue, highlighted in the UK by the blockbuster sixteen-volume Phillips report in 2000, is taken by Ulrich Beck as emblematic of what he claims to be a ‘risk society’. Michael Power says an age of ‘new risk management’ has dawned in corporate governance, sparked by high-profile business failures and accidents. Much academic and media attention has been paid to risks from food, electric power lines, mobile phones, dangerous people, even dangerous dogs (ostensibly a rather traditional risk, but one that in recent years has been the subject of draconian new regulatory regimes in several countries, including France, Spain and Germany). Such developments in the ‘risk game’ have been described by best-selling sociologists like Beck and Giddens (who make much of their world-historical significance in an era of ‘high modernity’) and by social psychologists interested in what shapes risk perception or ‘amplification’.
The Impact of Industrial Design Effectiveness on Corporate Financial Performance*
Authors: Hertenstein Julie H. , Platt Marjorie B. , Veryzer Robert W. 
Published: December 2004

Despite the growing recognition of industrial design's value in creating sustainable competitive advantage, few studies have attempted to quantify the contribution that design makes to company financial performance. This article examines the relationship between industrial design and company financial performance in order to assess industrial design's contribution to this performance. Effective industrial design was evaluated by asking a panel of 138 industrial design experts to rank the industrial design effectiveness of publicly traded firms within nine selected manufacturing industries; the ranking process yielded 93 firms. Based on the rankings, firms within each industry were divided into two groups: those judged as exhibiting high design effectiveness versus those judged as low in design effectiveness. Audited financial data reported to the SEC across a seven‐year period from 1995 to 2001 were used to evaluate financial performance.Using traditional financial ratios senior managers consider essential performance measures, those firms with high design effectiveness were hypothesized to have higher returns on sales, returns on assets, and growth rates of sales, net income, and cash flow than firms with low design effectiveness. High design effectiveness firms further were hypothesized to have higher stock market returns. These comprehensive, corporate financial measures incorporate expenditures made on industrial design (industrial designers' salaries, design consultants' fees, computer‐aided industrial design equipment) and expenditures that designers influence through their design choices (material costs, manufacturing equipment).This analysis reveals that firms rated as having “good” design were stronger on all measures except growth rate measures. These results provide strong evidence that good industrial design is related to corporate financial performance and stock market performance even after considering expenditures on industrial design. Further, the patterns of financial performance over the seven‐year horizon suggest that these effects are persistent.