Adequate Explanation (adequate + explanation)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Obesity, serious mental illness and antipsychotic drugs

DIABETES OBESITY & METABOLISM, Issue 7 2009
Richard I. G. Holt
The prevalence of overweight and obesity is higher in people with mental illness than in the general population. Body weight is tightly regulated by a complex system involving the cortex and limbic system, the hypothalamus and the gastrointestinal tract. While there are justifiable concerns about the weight gain associated with antipsychotic medication, it is too simplistic to ascribe all obesity in people with serious mental illness (SMI) to their drug treatment. The development of obesity in SMI results from the complex interaction of the genotype and environment of the person with mental illness, the mental illness itself and antipsychotic medication. There are dysfunctional reward mechanisms in SMI that may contribute to poor food choices and overeating. While it is clear that antipsychotics have profound effects to stimulate appetite, no one receptor interaction provides an adequate explanation for this effect, and many mechanisms are likely to be involved. The complexity of the system regulating body weight allows us to start to understand why some individuals appear much more prone to weight gain and obesity than others. [source]


Simulation of Redox-Cycling Phenomena at Interdigitated Array (IDA) Electrodes: Amplification and Selectivity

ELECTROANALYSIS, Issue 5 2008
M. Odijk
Abstract We present Finite Element Method (FEM) simulations of interdigitated array (IDA) electrode geometries to study and verify redox selectivity and redox cycling amplification factor. The simulations provide an adequate explanation of an earlier found, but poorly understood, high amplification factor (65×) in a 1,,m-spaced IDA microdevice. Moreover, using the FEM calculations we present selectivity measurements with IDA electrodes in a mixture of two redox species, as for example dopamine and ferricyanide. We show that it is possible to electrochemically detect dopamine in presence of the stronger reductor ferricyanide, which is impossible with direct amperometric detection, with the use of IDA electrodes with proper polarization potential of the collector electrode. Using our simulations, we show that a theoretical selectivity of dopamine over ferricyanide of 11 can be achieved. [source]


Imagining the Future: Children, Education and Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty in Urban Bangladesh

IDS BULLETIN, Issue 1 2009
Naila Kabeer
Failure to invest in children's education is widely recognised as a key mechanism for the intergenerational transmission of poverty. At the same time, rising levels of education among different socioeconomic groups in countries like Bangladesh suggest that poverty on its own is not an adequate explanation for this failure. This article uses survey data on low-income households in urban Bangladesh to explore what differentiates parents who have managed to send their children to school from those who have not. One factor is education: parents with no education are more likely to have children of school-going age who are not at school. Different aspects of household vulnerability, as captured by asset deficits, reliance on casual labour and female headship, also play an important role in determining whether children go to school or not. In addition, the article argues that contextual factors have an important influence on how parents imagine their children's future and how children themselves regard education. The hazards of daily life in slum environments, the limited range of job opportunities available and the absence of decent educational facilities all serve to undermine parental commitment and children's motivation with regard to education. The article suggests that the state and civil society should collaborate to promote educational and livelihood interventions which are responsive to the needs of the more vulnerable sections of the poor and to reshape how parents and children envisage the future. [source]


Oral bleeding: Child abuse alert

JOURNAL OF PAEDIATRICS AND CHILD HEALTH, Issue 5 2002
T Stricker
Abstract: Physicians must be aware of histories, behaviours and physical findings of maltreated children. We report two cases of physical child abuse in which the initial symptom was oral bleeding. In both cases, the diagnosis was delayed and was made only after severe injuries were inflicted. Injuries to the oral cavity and oral bleeding of uncertain origin in infants should be considered seriously and should be carefully assessed in relation to adequacy of history to explain the mechanism of injury. When an infant has been injured and no adequate explanation is available to account for the mechanism, inflicted injury must be suspected and evaluated, so that in cases of child maltreatment, diagnosis and protection of the child from further injury can take place as early as possible. [source]


Brains versus brawn: An empirical test of Barker's brain sparing model

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 2 2010
Jack Baker
The Barker model of the in utero origins of diminished muscle mass in those born small invokes the adaptive "sparing" of brain tissue development at the expense of muscle. Though compelling, to date this model has not been directly tested. This article develops an allometric framework for testing the principal prediction of the Barker model,that among those born small muscle mass is sacrificed to spare brain growth,then evaluates this hypothesis using data from the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III). The results indicate clear support for a negative relationship between the allometric development of the two tissues; however, a further consideration of conserved mammalian fetal circulatory patterns suggests the possibility that system-constrained patterns of developmental damage and "bet-hedging" responses in affected tissues may provide a more adequate explanation of the results. Far from signaling the end of studies of adaptive developmental programming, this perspective may open a promising new avenue of inquiry within the fields of human biology and the developmental origins of health and disease. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2010. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Stereotype Threat and Race of Interviewer Effects in a Survey on Political Knowledge

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2003
Darren W. Davis
Social desirability is generally thought to underlie the propensity for survey respondents to tailor their answers to what they think would satisfy or please the interviewer. While this may in fact be the underlying motivation, especially on attitudinal and opinion questions, social desirability does not seem to be an adequate explanation for interviewer effects on factual questions. Borrowing from the social psychology literature on stereotype threat, we test an alternative account of the race-of-interviewer effects. Stereotype threat maintains that the pressure to disconfirm and to avoid being judged by negative and potentially degrading stereotypes interferes with the processing of information. We argue that the survey context contains many parallels to a testing environment in which stereotype threat might alter responses to factual questions. Through a series of framing experiments in a public opinion survey and the reliance on the sensitivity to the race of the interviewer, our results are consistent with expectations based on a theory of "stereotype threat." African American respondents to a battery of questions about political knowledge get fewer answers right when interviewed by a white interviewer than when interviewed by an African American interviewer. The observed differences in performance on the political knowledge questions cannot be accounted for by differences in the educational background or gender of the respondents. [source]


Debating dussehra and reinterpreting rebellion in bastar district, central india

THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 1 2001
Nandini Sundar
This article unpacks the history of a ,tribal' region in Central India to show that the current appearance of ,two-dimensionality' or stark opposition between the people and the state is a product of colonial and post-colonial policies rather than a pre-colonial relic. It challenges the idea of ,coercive subordination' as an adequate explanation for kingship in this area, as argued by the late Alfred Gell. Instead, this article uses the same phenomena, annual Dussehra rituals and successive rebellions, to argue for a more dialectical concept of hegemony. It also takes issue with culturalist interpretations of rule, arguing instead for a historically nuanced political economy. [source]


Aid and Growth in the Pacific Islands

ASIAN-PACIFIC ECONOMIC LITERATURE, Issue 2 2006
Vlad Pavlov
The literature on the aid,growth relationship has recently been reinvigorated through the application of growth equations that seek to explain growth as a function of institutions, policies and aid. This approach has generally led to the conclusion that aid has contributed to growth, albeit with decreasing returns. Some studies have found that there is only a positive relationship between aid and growth when there is a favourable policy environment,a finding that has been used to provide a reason for the reallocation of aid to better-performing countries and an increased emphasis by donors on aid conditionality. It is unclear whether these conclusions apply to the Pacific island countries given their unusual features: notably, small populations, remote locations and a high level of aid. This paper draws on the recent literature in examining the aid,growth relationship in seven Pacific island countries. A positive relationship between aid and growth is identified, although it is subject to decreasing returns. The study is unable to provide an adequate explanation for the role of institutions and policy in growth in the countries studied, or determine whether aid only contributes to growth when favourable policy environments are in place. [source]


Factors explaining male/female differences in attitudes and purchase intention toward genetically engineered salmon,,

JOURNAL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR, Issue 2 2008
Wei Qin
Frequently observed male/female differences in attitudes toward genetically engineered (GE) foods have not received adequate explanations. We examined (a) the ability of two hypotheses (safety concern and institutional trust) to explain male/female attitudes toward GE salmon and (b) the effect of attitudes on male/female differences in purchase intent. A survey (n,=,501) was administered in two branches of a regional supermarket chain. After reading an information booklet, men and women's scores on a knowledge quiz did not differ but women had significantly more negative attitudes toward GE salmon than men. Attitudinal male/female differences were attributed to women's lower trust in government agencies and scientific organizations, and higher level of perceived health risks compared to men , supporting both hypotheses. But the essential basis of these attitudinal male/female differences appeared to be women's greater concern about the ethics/morality of this application. Attitude differences were the major contributor to male/female differences in purchase intention. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]