LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
A novel solid-phase extraction for the concentration of sweeteners in water and analysis by ion-pair liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry.

A highly sensitive method for the simultaneous trace (ng/L) quantification of seven commonly used artificial sweeteners in a variety of water samples using solid-phase extraction and ion-pair high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) triple quadrupole mass spectrometer with an electrospray ionization source (ESI-MS) in negative ion multiple reaction monitoring mode was developed. Ten solid phase extraction (SPE) cartridges were tested to evaluate their applicability for the pre-concentration of the analytes, and their loading and eluting parameters were optimized. Satisfactory recoveries (77-99%) of all of the studied sweeteners were obtained using a Poly-Sery PWAX cartridge with 25 mM sodium acetate solution (pH 4) as wash buffer and methanol containing 1mM tris (hydroxymethyl) amino methane (TRIS) as eluent. The method is sound and does not require pH adjustment or buffering of water samples. The HPLC separation was performed on an Athena C18-WP column with water and acetonitrile, both containing 5mM ammonium acetate and 1mM TRIS as mobile phases, in gradient elution mode. The linearity, precision, and accuracy of the method were evaluated, and good reproducibility was obtained. Method quantification limits varied between 0.4 and 7.5 ng/L for different water samples. The post-extraction spike method was applied to assess matrix effects, and quantification was achieved using internal standard calibration to overcome the unavoidable matrix effects during ESI-MS analysis. The method was applied to the analysis of thirteen water samples from Tianjin, China, including wastewater, tap water, surface water, and groundwater. The method described here is time-saving, accurate and precise, and is suitable for monitoring artificial sweeteners in different water matrices.
Effect of paracetamol (acetaminophen) and ibuprofen on body temperature in acute ischemic stroke PISA, a phase II double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial [ISRCTN98608690]

BACKGROUND
Body temperature is a strong predictor of outcome in acute stroke. In a previous randomized trial we observed that treatment with high-dose acetaminophen (paracetamol) led to a reduction of body temperature in patients with acute ischemic stroke, even when they had no fever. The purpose of the present trial was to study whether this effect of acetaminophen could be reproduced, and whether ibuprofen would have a similar, or even stronger effect.


METHODS
Seventy-five patients with acute ischemic stroke confined to the anterior circulation were randomized to treatment with either 1000 mg acetaminophen, 400 mg ibuprofen, or placebo, given 6 times daily during 5 days. Treatment was started within 24 hours from the onset of symptoms. Body temperatures were measured at 2-hour intervals during the first 24 hours, and at 6-hour intervals thereafter.


RESULTS
No difference in body temperature at 24 hours was observed between the three treatment groups. However, treatment with high-dose acetaminophen resulted in a 0.3 degrees C larger reduction in body temperature from baseline than placebo treatment (95% CI: 0.0 to 0.6 degrees C). Acetaminophen had no significant effect on body temperature during the subsequent four days compared to placebo, and ibuprofen had no statistically significant effect on body temperature during the entire study period.


CONCLUSIONS
Treatment with a daily dose of 6000 mg acetaminophen results in a small, but potentially worthwhile decrease in body temperature after acute ischemic stroke, even in normothermic and subfebrile patients. Further large randomized clinical trials are needed to study whether early reduction of body temperature leads to improved outcome.
QoS Oriented Time and Frequency Domain Packet Schedulers for The UTRAN Long Term Evolution

In this paper we introduce orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) downlink general packet scheduling methods for throughput fairness control among users. The investigation is based on the 3GPP UTRAN long term evolution (LTE) and a decoupled time/frequency domain packet scheduler approach is used. It is shown that fairness can be effectively controlled with frequency domain metric weighting or time domain priority set scheduling (TD-PSS) depending on the number of users in the cell. Furthermore we introduce a principle of metric decoupling between time and frequency domain schedulers that is fundamental for maximizing throughput control. The algorithms are simulated in best effort (BE) and constant bit rate (CBR) users conditions. They are shown to provide coverage gains of up to 60% for a cell throughput loss of 5 % over the well known time-frequency domain proportional fair scheduler.
New enhancements of the scrotal one-incision technique for placement of artificial urinary sphincter allow proximal cuff placement.

INTRODUCTION
Urinary incontinence impairs sexual functioning and sexual satisfaction. Traditional artificial urinary sphincter (AUS) implantation requires perineal incision for cuff placement and a second inguinal incision for reservoir and pump placement. We believed AUS could be placed easier and quicker through one scrotal incision. Aim.  In an effort to effect more proximal placement of the cuff while keeping the advantages of the one scrotal incision technique, we report enhancements to the original surgical technique.


METHODS
Thirty patients have been operated upon using the enhanced technique. A modification of the SKW retractor system (AMS) facilitates deep bulbar exposure. Twenty patients were first time implantations and 10 were revisions with five of the revisions having had the original AUS placed by traditional two-incision technique. Two of the first time AUS patients received an inflatable penile prosthesis through the same incision.


MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
We evaluated site of cuff placement, sizes of cuffs used, postoperative continence status.


RESULTS
All of the virgin AUS required dissection of the bulbocavernosus muscle prior to cuff placement. In scrotally placed revisions, replacement cuffs were situated considerably proximal (4.5-7.5 cm) to the original cuff site. The perineal placed revisions were accomplished through a scrotal incision with replacement of two cuffs in the same site and the three other patients immediately distal. No intraoperative complications were seen. One patient developed scrotal hematoma requiring drainage. Only 15 patients are available for follow-up and all are socially continent (one pad or less).


CONCLUSIONS
Transscrotal approach is used safely and efficiently for penile implants and AUS implantation. The new enhancements to the one-scrotal incision technique allow more proximal cuff placement as evidenced by the bulbocavernosus muscle dissection and use of larger cuffs. Continence rate is similar to rates achieved with perineal placement of cuff found in the literature.
Duckneglect: video-games based neglect rehabilitation.

BACKGROUND
Video-games are becoming a common tool to guide patients through rehabilitation because of their power of motivating and engaging their users. Video-games may also be integrated into an infrastructure that allows patients, discharged from the hospital, to continue intensive rehabilitation at home under remote monitoring by the hospital itself, as suggested by the recently funded Rewire project.


OBJECTIVE
Goal of this work is to describe a novel low cost platform, based on video-games, targeted to neglect rehabilitation.


METHODS
The patient is guided to explore his neglected hemispace by a set of specifically designed games that ask him to reach targets, with an increasing level of difficulties. Visual and auditory cues helped the patient in the task and are progressively removed. A controlled randomization of scenarios, targets and distractors, a balanced reward system and music played in the background, all contribute to make rehabilitation more attractive, thus enabling intensive prolonged treatment.


RESULTS
Results from our first patient, who underwent rehabilitation for half an hour, for five days a week for one month, showed on one side a very positive attitude of the patient towards the platform for the whole period, on the other side a significant improvement was obtained. Importantly, this amelioration was confirmed at a follow up evaluation five months after the last rehabilitation session and generalized to everyday life activities.


CONCLUSIONS
Such a system could well be integrated into a home based rehabilitation system.
Assessing children's inference generation: what do tests of reading comprehension measure?

BACKGROUND
Previous research suggests that children with specific comprehension difficulties have problems with the generation of inferences. This raises important questions as to whether poor comprehenders have poor comprehension skills generally, or whether their problems are confined to specific inference types.


AIMS
The main aims of the study were (a) using two commonly used tests of reading comprehension to classify the questions requiring the generation of inferences, and (b) to investigate the relative performance of skilled and less-skilled comprehenders on questions tapping different inference types.


SAMPLE
The performance of 10 poor comprehenders (mean age 110.06 months) was compared with the performance of 10 normal readers (mean age 112.78 months) on two tests of reading comprehension.


METHOD
A qualitative analysis of the NARA II (form 1) and the WORD comprehension subtest was carried out. Participants were then administered the NARA II, WORD comprehension subtest and a test of non-word reading.


RESULTS
The NARA II was heavily reliant on the generation of knowledge-based inferences, while the WORD comprehension subtest was biased towards the retention of literal information. Children identified by the NARA II as having comprehension difficulties performed in the normal range on the WORD comprehension subtests. Further, children with comprehension difficulties performed poorly on questions requiring the generation of knowledge-based and elaborative inferences. However, they were able to answer questions requiring attention to literal information or use of cohesive devices at a level comparable to normal readers.


CONCLUSIONS
Different reading tests tap different types of inferencing skills. Lessskilled comprehenders have particular difficulty applying real-world knowledge to a text during reading, and this has implications for the formulation of effective intervention strategies.
Infodemiology: Tracking Flu-Related Searches on the Web for Syndromic Surveillance

BACKGROUND
Syndromic surveillance uses health-related data that precede diagnosis and signal a sufficient probability of a case or an outbreak to warrant further public health response.


OBJECTIVE
While most syndromic surveillance systems rely on data from clinical encounters with health professionals, I started to explore in 2004 whether analysis of trends in Internet searches can be useful to predict outbreaks such as influenza epidemics and prospectively gathered data on Internet search trends for this purpose.


RESULTS
There is an excellent correlation between the number of clicks on a keyword-triggered link in Google with epidemiological data from the flu season 2004/2005 in Canada (Pearson correlation coefficient of current week clicks with the following week influenza cases r=.91). The "Google ad sentinel method" proved to be more timely, more accurate and - with a total cost of Can$365.64 for the entire flu-season - considerably cheaper than the traditional method of reports on influenza-like illnesses observed in clinics by sentinel physicians.


CONCLUSION
Systematically collecting and analyzing health information demand data from the Internet has considerable potential to be used for syndromic surveillance. Tracking web searches on the Internet has the potential to predict population-based events relevant for public health purposes, such as real outbreaks, but may also be confounded by "epidemics of fear". Data from such "infodemiology studies" should also include longitudinal data on health information supply.
Ex vivo comparison of three surgical techniques to stabilize canine cranial cruciate ligament deficient stifles.

OBJECTIVE
To quantify and compare canine stifle stability after 3 stabilization techniques.


STUDY DESIGN
Randomized controlled study.


SAMPLE POPULATION
Adult canine cadaveric pelvic limbs.


METHODS
Total craniocaudal (CrCa) tibial translation quantified in stifles with the cranial cruciate ligament (CrCL) intact, transected, and stabilized with 1 of 3 techniques: (1) hamstring graft (HG); (2) modified retinacular imbrication (MRIT); (3) anatometric fascia lata translocation (AFLT). Tibial translation was quantified from radiographs generated during application of cranial and caudal forces to the tibia. After removal of all soft tissues except periarticular ligaments and fixation, CrCa tibial translation, as before, and medial-lateral rotation, via torsional loading, was quantified with an active motion analysis system. Total tibial translation was evaluated for effect of technique and cruciate status using mixed effect linear model with significance considered at P-value <.05.


RESULTS
CrCa translation was not significantly different across stabilization techniques with CrCLs intact, transected, or after stabilization. Poststabilization translation was significantly less than posttransection for all techniques. Compared with the intact CrCL, CrCa translation poststabilization after HG was significantly greater whereas poststabilization after MRIT and AFLT was not significantly different. Tibial rotation exceeded instrumentation limits in 62.5% HG limbs, 20% MRIT limbs, and 60% AFLT limbs.


CONCLUSIONS
All 3 stifle stabilization techniques confer comparable CrCa translational stability after CrCL disruption with that provided by the MRIT and AFLT techniques comparable to the intact CrCL.


CLINICAL RELEVANCE
The extra- and intracapsular techniques evaluated in this study reduced CrCa tibial translation in CrCL deficient stifles to varying amounts.
Does public policy support or undermine climate change adaptation ? Exploring policy interplay across different scales of governance

Policy makers have now recognised the need to integrate thinking about climate change into all areas of public policy making. However, the discussion of ‘climate policy integration’ has tended to focus on mitigation decisions mostly taken at international and national levels. Clearly, there is also a more locally focused adaptation dimension to climate policy integration, which has not been adequately explored by academics or policy makers. Drawing on a case study of the UK, this paper adopts both a top-down and a bottom-up perspective to explore how far different sub-elements of policies within the agriculture, nature conservation and water sectors support or undermine potential adaptive responses. The top-down approach, which assumes that policies set explicit aims and objectives that are directly translated into action on the ground, combines a content analysis of policy documents with interviews with policy makers. The bottom-up approach recognises the importance of other actors in shaping policy implementation and involves interviews with actors in organisations within the three sectors. This paper reveals that neither approach offers a complete picture of the potentially enabling or constraining effects of different policies on future adaptive planning, but together they offer new perspectives on climate policy integration. These findings inform a discussion on how to implement climate policy integration, including auditing existing policies and ‘climate proofing’ new ones so they support rather than hinder adaptive planning. r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A survey of Web-based business models for e-government in the Netherlands

Governments worldwide are increasingly using Web-based business models to enhance their service delivery. Yet the concept of the business model is unexplored within the context of e-government. Drawing upon the literature on e-commerce, we develop a taxonomy for analyzing Web-based business models for e-government. Based on a systematic survey of 59 e-government Web sites in the Netherlands, our findings indicate that most of the Web sites use the content provider or direct-tocustomer business models, while only a few are using novel business models. Overall, the concept of business model is appealing and useful in the public sector. Specifically it compliments research onWeb site quality by analyzing and describing Web sites using atomic e-government business models and suggesting improvements by using combinations of business models. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Using PSA to guide timing of androgen deprivation in patients with T0-4 N0-2 M0 prostate cancer not suitable for local curative treatment (EORTC 30891).

OBJECTIVE
EORTC trial 30891 compared immediate versus deferred androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) in T0-4 N0-2 M0 prostate cancer (PCa). Many patients randomly assigned to deferred ADT did not require ADT because they died before becoming symptomatic. The question arises whether serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels may be used to decide when to initiate ADT in PCa not suitable for local curative treatment.


METHODS
PSA data at baseline, PSA doubling time (PSADT) in patients receiving no ADT, and time to PSA relapse (>2 ng/ml) in patients whose PSA declined to <2 ng/ml within the first year after immediate ADT were analyzed in 939 eligible patients randomly assigned to immediate (n=468) or deferred ADT (n=471).


RESULTS
In both arms, patients with a baseline PSA>50 ng/ml were at a>3.5-fold higher risk to die of PCa than patients with a baseline PSA<or=8 ng/ml. If baseline PSA was between 8 and 50 ng/ml, the risk of PCa death was approximately 7.5-fold higher in patients with PSADT<12 mo than in patients with PSADT>12 mo. Time to PSA relapse after response to immediate ADT correlated significantly with baseline PSA, suggesting that baseline PSA may also reflect disease aggressiveness.


CONCLUSIONS
Patients with a baseline PSA>50 ng/ml and/or a PSADT<12 mo were at increased risk to die from PCa and might have benefited from immediate ADT, whereas patients with a baseline PSA<50 ng/ml and a slow PSADT (>12 mo) were likely to die of causes unrelated to PCa, and thus could be spared the burden of immediate ADT.
Reduced Basal ATP Synthetic Flux of Skeletal Muscle in Patients with Previous Acromegaly

BACKGROUND
Impaired mitochondrial function and ectopic lipid deposition in skeletal muscle and liver have been linked to decreased insulin sensitivity. As growth hormone (GH) excess can reduce insulin sensitivity, we examined the impact of previous acromegaly (AM) on glucose metabolism, lipid storage and muscular ATP turnover.


PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS
Seven AM (4f/3 m, age: 46+/-4 years, BMI: 28+/-1 kg/m(2)) and healthy volunteers (CON: 3f/4 m, 43+/-4 years, 26+/-2 kg/m(2)) matched for age and body mass underwent oral glucose testing for assessment of insulin sensitivity (OGIS) and ss-cell function (adaptation index, ADAP). Whole body oxidative capacity was measured with indirect calorimetry and spiroergometry. Unidirectional ATP synthetic flux (fATP) was assessed from (31)P magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) of calf muscle. Lipid contents of tibialis anterior (IMCLt) and soleus muscles (IMCLs) and liver (HCL) were measured with (1)H MRS.


RESULTS
Despite comparable GH, insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-I) and insulin sensitivity, AM had approximately 85% lower ADAP (p<0.01) and approximately 21% reduced VO(2)max (p<0.05). fATP was similarly approximately 25% lower in AM (p<0.05) and related positively to ADAP (r = 0.744, p<0.01), but negatively to BMI (r = -0.582, p<0.05). AM had approximately 3 fold higher HCL (p<0.05) while IMCLt and IMCLs did not differ between the groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Humans with a history of acromegaly exhibit reduced insulin secretion, muscular ATP synthesis and oxidative capacity but elevated liver fat content. This suggests that alterations in ss-cell function and myocellular ATP production may persist despite normalization of GH secretion after successful treatment of acromegaly.
Computation and Evaluation of Features of Surface Electromyogram to Identify the Force of Muscle Contraction and Muscle Fatigue

The relationship between force of muscle contraction and muscle fatigue with six different features of surface electromyogram (sEMG) was determined by conducting experiments on thirty-five volunteers. The participants performed isometric contractions at 50%, 75%, and 100% of their maximum voluntary contraction (MVC). Six features were considered in this study: normalised spectral index (NSM5), median frequency, root mean square, waveform length, normalised root mean square (NRMS), and increase in synchronization (IIS) index. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and linear regression analysis were performed to determine the significance of the feature with respect to the three factors: muscle force, muscle fatigue, and subject. The results show that IIS index of sEMG had the highest correlation with muscle fatigue and the relationship was statistically significant (P < 0.01), while NSM5 associated best with level of muscle contraction (%MVC) (P < 0.01). Both of these features were not affected by the intersubject variations (P > 0.05).
Randomized Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Trial on the Potential Modes of Action of SheaFlex 70 TM in Osteoarthritis

Phillip A. Cheras*, Stephen P. Myers, Peta-Anne Paul-Brent, Kerry H. Outerbridge and Gary V. L. Nielsen NatMed-Research, School of Health and Human Sciences, Southern Cross University, Lismore, New South Wales, Australia The Australasian Kidney Trials Network, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Division of Orthopaedics, Greenslopes Private Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Orthopaedic Surgery, Mater Health Services, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Role of heterogeneity in elastic properties and layer thickness in the jointing of layered sedimentary rocks: ROLE OF HETEROGENEITY OF LAYERED SEDIMENTARY ROCKS

[1] We investigate how overburden weight acts in conjunction with heterogeneity in elastic properties between sedimentary layers to induce the tensile stress necessary for regional jointing. Model results are supported by data from a new experimental design in which an aluminum loading frame sandwiches a tabular specimen of brittle material of varying thickness between two layers of rubber. Load is applied perpendicular to the layering. The aluminum load frame only permits the rubber layers to expand in one direction, leading to the formation of a system of parallel fractures in the brittle layer as the rubber extends uniaxially. The initiation of the first fractures is independent of the layer thickness. As fracture spacing decreases below the layer thickness, mechanical interaction between closely-spaced fractures limits the initiation of additional fractures. The onset of mechanical inhibition of additional fracture growth occurs at greater normalized fracture spacings in thinner layers.