Literature of the receptaculitid algae : Matthew H. Nitecki -- , Kristine L. Bradof -- , Doris V. Nitecki --.

n.s. no.16(1987)

Global literature of fiddler crabs, genus Uca (Decapoda, Ocypodidae): trends and future directions

Crabs of the genus Uca Leach, 1814 are characterized by having strong sexual dimorphism and a global distribution. Currently, 97 species have been described and analyzed under several aspects, including population ecology, physiology and ethology. However, there is no general summary of the information from the various literatures. The aim of this study is to perform a scientometric analysis of fiddler crab studies. For this we searched papers available in the Thomson ISI database that contained the words "Uca" OR "fiddler* crab*" between the years 1991 and 2007. For each paper, we researched and recorded the following characteristics: publication year; journal of publication; the first author's nationality; the country where the study was conducted; study type; species studied; and the work area. Our results indicated that there was no increase in the number of articles through the years considered. The Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology published most of the articles on Uca, indicating the importance of this group as a model for testing ecological hypotheses using experimental approaches. Our results also showed that United States had the highest number of authors and published studies on Uca, following the overall trend in dominance on scientific research. Furthermore, using models with three variables (per capita income, number of species of Uca and extent of coastal countries) we observed that, according to the Akaike Information Criterion, the per capita income was the most important correlate for the number of articles per country (both the author's country and country of study). Additionally, our results show that the species U. pugilator (distributed on the East Coast of the North American continent) was the species most singularly referenced in the papers considered. Moreover, our results indicate that most studies on Uca use a descriptive and local scale. The majority of papers in our literature search reflect studies in population biology, followed by behavioral and physiological characteristics.

Capitalism, unemployment and the transition to the contemporary pattern of growth

A new model of unemployment based on an idea of Marx is presented and used to interpret the development of the British economy from the beginning of capitalism to the present. It is shown that unemployment may be created purposely by capitalists in order to weaken the bargaining position of the workers. This mechanism leads to complex temporal pattern of unemployment and can explain why wages took almost a century and a half to react to the growing capital to labour ratio that characterised early British capitalism.

On the choice of an exchange rate regime: target zones revisited

From the classical gold standard up to the current ERM2 arrangement of the European Union, target zones have been a widely used exchange regime in contemporary history. This paper presents a benchmark model that rationalizes the choice of target zones over the rest of regimes: the fixed rate, the free float and the managed float. It is shown that the monetary authority may gain efficiency by reducing volatility of both the exchange rate and the interest rate at the same time. Furthermore, the model is consistent with some known stylized facts in the empirical literature that previous models were not able to produce, namely, the positive relation between the exchange rate and the interest rate differential, the degree of non-linearity of the function linking the exchage rate to fundamentals and the shape of the exchange rate stochastic distribution.

The ‘Global Dimension’ of Contemporary Politics. An Argument for Taking ‘Global’ Seriously

Recent years have seen a striking proliferation of the term ‘global’ in public and political discourse. The popularity of the term is a manifestation of the fact that there is a widespread notion that contemporary social reality is ‘global’. The acknowledgment of this notion has important political implications and raises questions about the role played by the idea of the ‘global’ in policy making. These questions, in turn, expose even more fundamental issues about whether the term ‘global’ indicates a difference in kind, even an ontological shift, and, if so, how to approach it. This paper argues that the notion of ‘global’, in other words the ‘global dimension’, is a significant aspect of contemporary politics that needs to be investigated. The paper argues that in the globalization discourse of International Studies ‘global’ is ‘naturalized’, which means that it is taken for granted and assumed to be self-evident. The term ‘global’ is used mainly in a descriptive way and subsumed under the rubric of ‘globalization’. ‘Global’ tends to be equated with transnational and/or world-wide; hence, it addresses quantitative differences in degree but not (alleged) differences in kind. In order to advance our understanding of contemporary politics, ‘global’ needs to be taken seriously. This means, firstly, to understand and to conceptualize ‘global’ as a social category; and, secondly, to uncover ‘global’ as a ‘naturalized’ concept in the Political and International Studies strand of the globalization discourse in order to rescue it for innovative new approaches in the investigation of contemporary politics. In order to do so, the paper suggests adopting a strong linguistic approach starting with the analysis of the word ‘global’. Based on insights from post-structuralism as well as cognitive and general constructivist perspectives it argues that a frame-based corpus linguistic analysis offers the possibility of investigating the collective/social meaning(s) of global in order to operationalize them for the analysis of the ‘global dimension’ of contemporary politics.

Safety and occlusion rates of surgical treatment of unruptured intracranial aneurysms: a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature from 1990 to 2011.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Surgical clipping of unruptured intracranial aneurysms (UIAs) has recently been challenged by the emergence of endovascular treatment. We performed an updated systematic review and meta-analysis on the surgical treatment of UIAs, in an attempt to determine the aneurysm occlusion rates and safety of surgery in the modern era. METHODS: A detailed protocol was developed prior to conducting the review according to the Cochrane Collaboration guidelines. Electronic databases spanning January 1990-April 2011 were searched, complemented by hand searching. Heterogeneity was assessed using I(2), and publication bias with funnel plots. Surgical mortality and morbidity were analysed with weighted random effect models. RESULTS: 60 studies with 9845 patients harbouring 10 845 aneurysms were included. Mortality occurred in 157 patients (1.7%; 99% CI 0.9% to 3.0%; I(2)=82%). Unfavourable outcomes, including death, occurred in 692 patients (6.7%; 99% CI 4.9% to 9.0%; I(2)=85%). Morbidity rates were significantly greater in higher quality studies, and with large or posterior circulation aneurysms. Reported morbidity rates decreased over time. Studies were generally of poor quality; funnel plots showed heterogeneous results and publication bias, and data on aneurysm occlusion rates were scant. CONCLUSIONS: In studies published between 1990 and 2011, clipping of UIAs was associated with 1.7% mortality and 6.7% overall morbidity. The reputed durability of clipping has not been rigorously documented. Due to the quality of the included studies, the available literature cannot properly guide clinical decisions.

Congenital heart disease in pregnancies complicated by maternal diabetes mellitus. An international clinical collaboration, literature review, and meta-analysis.

PURPOSE: Investigation of the incidence and distribution of congenital structural cardiac malformations among the offspring of mothers with diabetes type 1 and of the influence of periconceptional glycemic control. METHODS: Multicenter retrospective clinical study, literature review, and meta-analysis. The incidence and pattern of congenital heart disease in the own study population and in the literature on the offspring of type 1 diabetic mothers were compared with the incidence and spectrum of the various cardiovascular defects in the offspring of nondiabetic mothers as registered by EUROCAT Northern Netherlands. Medical records were, in addition, reviewed for HbA(1c) during the 1st trimester. RESULTS: The distribution of congenital heart anomalies in the own diabetic study population was in accordance with the distribution encountered in the literature. This distribution differed considerably from that in the nondiabetic population. Approximately half the cardiovascular defects were conotruncal anomalies. The authors' study demonstrated a remarkable increase in the likelihood of visceral heterotaxia and variants of single ventricle among these patients. As expected, elevated HbA(1c) values during the 1st trimester were associated with offspring fetal cardiovascular defects. CONCLUSION: This study shows an increased likelihood of specific heart anomalies, namely transposition of the great arteries, persistent truncus arteriosus, visceral heterotaxia and single ventricle, among offspring of diabetic mothers. This suggests a profound teratogenic effect at a very early stage in cardiogenesis. The study emphasizes the frequency with which the offspring of diabetes-complicated pregnancies suffer from complex forms of congenital heart disease. Pregnancies with poor 1st-trimester glycemic control are more prone to the presence of fetal heart disease.

Chondromas of the spine: report of two cases and review of the literature.

We report two cases of vertebral chondroma presenting with spinal cord compression. In one case there was ultimate malignant transformation.