bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The cusp of evolution and development: a model of cichlid tooth shape diversity
Authors: Streelman J. T. , Webb J. F. , Albertson R. C. , Kocher T. D. 
Published: November 2003

SummaryTooth shape is a hallmark of repeated evolutionary radiations among cichlid fishes from East Africa. Cusp shape and number vary both within populations and among closely related species with different feeding behaviors and ecologies. Here, we use histology and scanning electron microscopy to chart the developmental trajectory of tooth shape differences in fishes from Lake Malawi. We demonstrate that species with bi‐ or tricuspid adult (replacement) teeth initially possess a first‐generation unicuspid dentition. Notably, the timing of turnover from first‐generation to replacement teeth differs among species and is correlated with feeding ecology. Next, we use field data for cichlid species with adult unicuspid, bicuspid, and tricuspid teeth to demonstrate a strong and positive relationship between the number of teeth in a row and tooth shape. We discuss cichlid tooth ontogeny in the context of morphogenetic models designed to explain the developmental basis of tooth shape variation in mammals. We suggest that the dramatic differences in cichlid dentitions can be explained by variation in the expression of common activators and inhibitors acting at multiple stages of odontogenesis.
Function and Back Symptoms in Older Adults
Authors: Edmond Susan L. , Felson David T. 
Published: November 2003

Objectives: To determine the relationship between back symptoms and limitations in nine specific functional activities.Design: A cross‐sectional study.Setting: This study was conducted as part of the Framingham Heart Study, a population‐based study performed on a representative sample of community‐living residents of Framingham, Massachusetts.Participants: Subjects consisted of 1,007 surviving members of the original cohort who participated in the 22nd Biennial Examination in 1992–93. Ages ranged from 70 to 100.Measurements: Subjects were asked whether they experienced pain, aching, or stiffness in their back on most days and whether they had difficulty performing nine specific functional skills. Odds ratios (ORs) and confidence intervals are reported for the entire sample and within categories of sex. The proportion of functional limitations attributable to back symptoms and the proportion of limitations ascribed by subjects to back symptoms among subjects with these limitations are also reported.Results: The results provide evidence of a relationship between back symptoms and functional limitations. ORs were highest for difficulty standing in one place for about 15 minutes, pushing or pulling a large object, and walking half a mile. Of those with back symptoms, 43% to 63% of limitations in activities were due to back symptoms. Among all subjects, back symptoms were so prevalent that 18% to 34% of all functional limitations were attributable to back symptoms. The association between back symptoms and functional limitations was especially strong in women.Conclusion: Back symptoms account for a large percentage of functional limitations in older adults, especially in women.
Depressive Symptoms as a Risk Factor for Disabling Back Pain in Community‐Dwelling Older Persons
Authors: Reid M. Carrington , Williams Christianna S. , Concato John , Tinetti Mary E. , Gill Thomas M. 
Published: November 2003

Objectives: To determine whether the presence of depressive symptoms is an independent risk factor for disabling back pain in community‐dwelling older persons.Design: Prospective cohort study with a 12‐month follow‐up period.Setting: General community.Participants: Seven hundred forty‐four members of a large health plan who were aged 70 and older and independent in bathing, walking, dressing, and transferring at baseline.Measurements: The presence of depressive symptoms, defined as a score of 16 or greater on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies—Depression Scale, was documented during a comprehensive baseline assessment that also included information regarding participants' demographic, medical, and physical/cognitive status. The occurrence of disabling back pain was ascertained during monthly telephone interviews.Results: Depressive symptoms were present in 153 (20.6%) participants at baseline. Over the 12‐month follow‐up period, 186 participants (25.0%) reported disabling back pain during 1 to 2 months and 91 (12.2%) during 3 or more months. After adjustment for potential confounders, the presence of depressive symptoms was independently associated with the occurrence of disabling back pain (adjusted odds ratio (AOR)=2.3 (95% confidence interval (CI)=1.2–4.4) for 1 to 2 months with disabling back pain; AOR=7.8 (95% CI=3.7–16.4) for 3 or more months with disabling back pain).Conclusion: The presence of depressive symptoms is a strong, independent, and highly prevalent risk factor for the occurrence of disabling back pain in community‐dwelling older persons.
Psychiatric Morbidity in a Neurology‐Based Memory Clinic: The Effect of Systematic Psychiatric Evaluation
Authors: Hejl Anne‐Mette , Hørding Merete , Hasselbalch Ellen , Dam Henrik , Hemmingsen Ralf , Waldemar Gunhild 
Published: November 2003

Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of psychiatric morbidity and the effect of systematic psychiatric evaluation in patients referred to a memory clinic in a neurological setting.Design: Descriptive case‐series study in consecutive referrals to a memory clinic.Setting: An outpatient multidisciplinary memory clinic in a neurological setting.Participants: An index group of 100 consecutive patients (aged 60–89) referred for diagnostic evaluation of cognitive symptoms during a period of 8 months and a reference group of 686 consecutive patients (aged 60–98) referred during a previous period of 54 months. In the index group, a systematic psychiatric evaluation was performed in addition to the neurological evaluation and routine investigations. In the reference group, patients had the same basic evaluation, but psychiatric evaluation was optional and was performed in 21% of the patients.Measurements: Prevalence of primary psychiatric morbidity in the index and reference groups according to international clinical criteria and multidisciplinary consensus report and three key psychiatric symptoms: delusions, hallucinations, and affective symptoms in the index group.Results: Twenty‐three percent of patients in the index group had a primary psychiatric disease. A primary psychiatric disease was diagnosed in 8% of patients in the reference group (P<.001). One or more psychiatric symptoms were identified in 72% of all patients in the index group.Conclusion:  Psychiatric conditions and symptoms are frequent in elderly patients with cognitive symptoms, including those referred to a neurological memory clinic. The data provide evidence for a multispecialty and multidisciplinary approach to the diagnosis and management of patients with possible dementia.
A Veteran's View of Science Education Today
Authors: MARSHALL J. STANLEY 
Published: November 2003

AbstractScience education in our schools is fundamentally the same today as it was fifty years ago and the scientific method has not really changed. Good science teaching is defined as the never‐ending search for evidence, for objective data, which leads to truth, and the search for truth should be at the heart of education in all subjects at all levels, and teacher training should address this objective view point. Science in our schools is watered down with derivatives such as environmental education. Steps should be taken to increase the level of science content knowledge in schools and science teacher education. Additionally, the rules of the open market should be invoked to give science teachers the latitude to offer their services as other providers of professional services do, and receive compensation greater than they would as regular full‐time teachers. These issues are discussed with implications for policy.
US Science Education: The View from a Practicing Scientist
Authors: ALTSCHULD RUTH A. 
Published: November 2003

AbstractScience and mathematics education in the US is failing to produce an adequate number of American scientists. Foreign postdoctoral fellows and students who typically remain in the US and become permanent residents and citizens increasingly populate US research laboratories. Were these foreign scientists to return home upon completion of their training, we would be facing a severe shortage of well‐trained research personnel in US laboratories. The contributions of foreign scientists to US scientific research have been important and impressive, but as noted above, there are dangers in relying on other countries to provide the basic education of scientists to fill our US laboratories.
National Government Policy Options for Contributing to Regional Economic Stability: The US Department of Energy's Major Nuclear Weapons Sites
Authors: GREENBERG MICHAEL , LOWRIE KAREN , FRISCH MICHAEL , LEWIS DAVID 
Published: November 2003

AbstractWe have conducted economic simulation, historical, and survey research that considers the national government's obligation to the regions that surround the places where it developed and tested nuclear weapons. The research shows that the strongest case for an obligation is at four site regions: Hanford (Washington), Idaho, Oak Ridge (Tennessee), and Savannah River (Georgia, South Carolina). These four are dependent on the Department of Energy (DOE), have relatively low incomes, are expected to grow less economically than their counterparts and the nation as a whole, and suffer from environmental stigma. We reviewed and simulated the impacts of a variety of tools, including severance packages, onsite projects, and offsite economic investments. In essence, investments in severance packages, education, and recreation are more effective per dollar invested than high technology, but all investments are less effective in these dependent regions than in larger metropolitan areas because of the economic leakage out of these dependent regions. The national government needs to begin a process of working with these regions to help them deal with the shock of shrinking their dependency on the DOE.
Legislative Victory, Electoral Uncertainty: Explaining Outcomes in the Battles over Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights
Authors: HAIDER‐MARKEL DONALD P. , MEIER KENNETH J. 
Published: November 2003

AbstractPrevious studies indicate that in cases of relatively low issue salience, the interest group model best explains lesbian and gay antidiscrimination policy in the American states. The analysis of state and local public policy prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation concludes that for cases of high issue salience, the morality politics model best describes outcomes. The interest group politics model is used here in a case study of Wisconsin's passage of a comprehensive antidiscrimination policy, while the morality politics model is used to investigate the electoral outcomes of anti‐gay ballot initiatives in several states. The results of this analysis conform with prior research—when lesbian and gay issues are not salient, the interest group politics model best explains resulting policy, however, under salient conditions, the morality politics model best describes outcomes. Finally, the implications of this research for social scientists and activists are discussed.
The Georgia Lottery: Assessing Its Administrative, Economic, and Political Effects
Authors: MCCRARY JOSEPH , CONDREY STEPHEN E. 
Published: November 2003

AbstractThis article examines the Georgia lottery as a “policy laboratory” and its potential effect on state‐level policy diffusion. The authors summarize an extensive research project they directed that included a survey of every state that offers a lottery, a general population survey of Georgia citizen attitudes toward the lottery, and results from an economic model summarizing the economic effects of the lottery. The analysis reveals that the Georgia lottery has been a significant source of revenue for the state's budget and operates in an administratively cost‐effective manner. The analysis also confirms the conventional wisdom that lower‐income households spend a greater proportionate share of their income on the lottery and that African Americans are more frequent players than whites. Furthermore, the Georgia lottery enjoys broad public support, the key to which appears to be the earmarking of lottery funds to specific, new, popular education programs. However, the data reveal that those educational programs promulgated by the Georgia lottery benefit citizens from both high and low socioeconomic status. Finally, the article suggests that lottery‐generated funds may reach a plateau or peak during the first decade of implementation and that state policymakers should design lottery‐funded programs accordingly.
Nutritional Risk Factors for Older Refugees
Authors: Pieterse Simone , Ismail Suraiya 
Published: November 2003

This study describes risk factors for poor nutrition among older Rwandan refugees. The most important areas of nutritional risk for older refugees are: physical ability and mobility; income and access to land; access to appropriate food rations; meeting basic needs such as water, fuel, shelter; equal access to essential services (food distribution, health services, mills, feeding programmes); and psycho‐social trauma.Women and older elderly (>70 years) are significantly more often in disadvantaged positions, such as having poor socio‐economic status, poor health, poor mobility, lower food intake, diminished social status, respect and social network. Older refugees are at higher risk than younger refugees and at higher risk than older people in stable situations. They should remain in good nutritional and general health for their own well‐being and that of their dependants. In addition to an adequate diet, a support network seems to be an important preventive aspect.
Particularism, Generalism and the Counting Argument
Authors: Kirchin Simon 
Published: November 2003

In a recent collection of papers –Moral Particularism (hereafter MP)1– some writers argue against a particularist explanation of thick ethical features, particularist in the sense developed by Jonathan Dancy. In this piece I argue that particularists can tackle what I regard as the most interesting argument put forward by these writers, an argument I call the Counting Argument. My aim is twofold. First, I wish to make clear exactly what the debate between particularists and their opponents about the thick rests on. Secondly, I do not wish to provide a ‘knock‐down’ argument to show particularism as true, but merely to push the onus back onto particularism's opponents and show that far more needs to be said.One last introductory comment. After some necessary scene‐setting in the first section, where I explain how the philosophical ground is carved up and introduce some terminology, I indicate why this debate is fundamental in ethical theory although I don’t pursue the idea here.
Content Externalism and the Internalism/Externalism Debate in Justification Theory
Authors: Vahid Hamid 
Published: November 2003

While recent debates over content externalism have been mainly concerned with whether it undermines the traditional thesis of privileged self‐knowledge, little attention has been paid to what bearing content externalism has on such important controversies as the internalism/externalism debate in epistemology. With a few exceptions, the question has either been treated as a side issue in discussions concerning the implications of content externalism, or has been dealt with in a cursory way in debates over the internalism/externalism distinction in justification theory. In this paper, I begin by considering some of the arguments that have sought to address the question, focusing mainly on Boghossian's pioneering attempt in bringing the issue to the fore.1 It will be argued that Boghossian's attempt to exploit the alleged non‐inferentiality of self‐knowledge to show that content externalism and justification internalism are incompatible fails.In the course of this examination, I consider and reject as inadequate some recent responses to Boghossian's argument (due to James Chase2). I then turn to evaluating Chase's own proposed argument to show how content externalism can be brought to bear on the internalism/externalism debate in epistemology, and find it wanting. Finally, having discussed BonJour's terse remarks in this connection,3 I set out to present, what I take to be, the strongest argument for the incompatibility of content externalism and justification internalism while highlighting the controversial character of one of its main premises. Let us, however, begin by drawing the contours of the debate.
Providing Websites with capabilities of one–to–one marketing
Authors: Mussi Silvano 
Published: November 2003

A formidable synergy can be obtained by putting expert system technology into the Internet. The modern trend of embedding expert systems into Websites turns out to be very promising, in particular for the field of marketing via the Web. The last two years have seen a growing interest in providing Websites with suitable embedded expert systems for one–to–one marketing. One–to– one marketing means marketing in a personalized way, i.e. marketing in a way that is adaptive to the personal needs of the user. A basic feature of this marketing framework consists in personalized prioritizing of news, i.e. presenting information in an order that is relevant to the specific needs of the current user. If the personalized prioritizing of news is a very useful feature in wired Web, it becomes essential in wireless Web, the promising next generation of the Web.The paper presents a general methodology for personalized prioritizing of news. The methodology integrates decision theory with a deep–knowledge–based user model (i.e. causal knowledge linking user preferences to user goals). The deep–knowledge model of the user is a source of power of the methodology because it allows the system to know (and possibly explain) why the user acts the way he/she acts. Another relevant aspect of the methodology is that the burden of personalization is not placed on the user, and in fact the user does not have to declare his/her needs or interests or goals: they are automatically inferred from his/her profile data. In order to investigate the ideas underlying the proposal, a methodology example has been implemented in a prototype and then tested on real cases in the context of a supercomputing portal.
Effects of measurement strategy and statistical analysis on dose-response relations between physical workload and low back pain
Authors: Jansen J P , Burdorf A 
Published: November 2003

Background:In epidemiological studies on physical workloads and back complaints, among the important features in modelling dose-response relations are the measurement strategy of the exposure and the nature of the dose-response relation that is assumed.Aim:To evaluate the effect of these two features on the strength of the dose-response relation between physical load and severe low back pain.Methods:The study population consisted of 769 workers in nursing homes and homes for the elderly. Observations at the workplace were made of 212 subjects. These observations were analysed to determine exposure to physical load according to two measurement strategies: the individual approach and the group approach. The nature of the dose-response relation was evaluated with nested logistic regression models.Results:The group approach resulted in higher odds ratios for the associations between physical load and low back pain than the individual approach. Spline logistic regression models appeared to describe the dose-response relation between physical load and low back pain best. The corresponding curve showed small changes in risk for small changes in exposure, whereas the categorical model only showed sudden large changes in risk at predefined exposure values.Conclusion:The choice for a particular measurement strategy of physical load influences the strength of the associations between physical load and severe low back pain. Spline models allow changes in risk over the whole exposure range and are therefore a promising approach to identify quantitative dose-response patterns between physical load and low back pain.
Skin temperature recovery from cold provocation in workers exposed to vibration: a longitudinal study
Authors: Cherniack M , Brammer A , Meyer J , Morse T , Peterson D , Fu R 
Published: November 2003

Background:Vibration white finger (VWF) is characterised by arterial hyperresponsiveness and vasoconstriction following cold provocation. Several years after of removal from exposure, most subjects show improved finger systolic blood pressure (FSBP) under conditions of cold challenge, but continue to report cold hands and finger blanching.Aims:To assess the underlying reasons for the persistence of cold symptoms.Methods:A total of 204 former users of pneumatic tools with cold related hand symptoms were evaluated and then re-evaluated a year later. Symptoms were evaluated using the Stockholm Workshop Scale. Finger systolic blood pressure per cent (FSBP%) was assessed by comparing digital blood pressure in a cold provoked and normalised state. Fingertip skin temperature was measured during cooling and occlusion and during rewarming and recovery.Results:There were dramatic improvements in FSBP% (14.3 mm Hg %), modest improvement in recovered skin temperature (0.86°C), and no change in symptom stage. When the most symptomatic subjects (n = 75) were compared with the less symptomatic subjects (n = 129), there were similar inter-test improvements in FSBP%. Skin temperature recovery improved in the less symptomatic (+1.49°C), but did not change in the most symptomatic group (−0.12°C). However, the more symptomatic group had higher temperatures at the initial test, thus qualifying the result.Conclusions:Skin temperature recovery after cold challenge in subjects with VWF remains reduced in the symptomatic subjects several years after exposure removal. This is evident even when blood pressure has increased in the setting of cold provocation. Results suggest that in VWF, the dermal circulation remains impaired, even after the restoration of arterial blood pressure in the digits.
Visual Standards in a Sample of Dentists Working within Scotland
Authors: Forgie Andrew H , Gearie Tracy , Pine Cynthia M , Pitts Nigel B 
Published: November 2003

Introduction This study aims to measure the visual acuity of practising dentists and to establish the average time elapsed since their last routine eye examination. Materials and methods Distance visual acuity, near visual acuity, convergence, accommodation, contrast sensitivity, heterophorias and stereoscopic vision were measured in a diverse group of 46 dentists practising in Scotland. Results The results indicated that distance visual acuity was at least 6/6 for all but one of the subjects. All had acceptable near visual acuity. Accommodation followed the expected age-related trend of decreasing with age. No subjects had a definitely abnormal contrast sensitivity score although four were in the borderline zone. No subjects had a horizontal squint but two had a significant vertical phoria. Three subjects had no stereoscopic vision and one subject had a very high threshold level. All other subjects were able to see stereoscopically. Of the subjects 57% had been for an eye examination within the previous two years, with the range being from less than one month to 17 years. Conclusion The eyesight of this group of clinicians exceeds generally accepted normal population values. Although the majority of the clinicians had attended for an eye examination within two years, the large range of time since last attendance is of concern and regular eye examinations are to be encouraged.