bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Use of modified ciclosporin in the management of feline pemphigus foliaceus: a retrospective analysis
Authors: Irwin Katherine E. , Beale Karin M. , Fadok Valerie A.
Published: June 2012

Background – Glucocorticoids as sole therapy for pemphigus foliaceus (PF) in cats are not always successful, and it is common to need additional immunomodulating agents to manage the disease.

Hypothesis/Objectives – This retrospective study evaluated the use of modified ciclosporin as an adjuvant or sole immunomodulating drug in cats with PF and compared their response to PF cats managed with chlorambucil.

Animals – Fifteen client‐owned cats diagnosed with PF that received ciclosporin and/or chlorambucil as part of their treatment and had adequate follow‐up to assess treatment response were evaluated.

Methods – Records were reviewed from feline PF patients presented between the years of 1999 and 2009. Cats were divided into two treatment groups: those treated with ciclosporin and those treated with chlorambucil. Most cats in both groups also received concurrent systemic glucocorticoids. Each group contained six patients. Three cats were treated with both medications and are discussed separately. Time to disease remission, remission‐inducing glucocorticoid dose, maintenance or final glucocorticoid dose, disease response and adverse effects were assessed.

Results – There was no significant difference in remission times or disease response between groups. All six patients maintained with ciclosporin for PF management were weaned off systemic glucocorticoids, while glucocorticoid therapy was stopped in only one of the six cats receiving chlorambucil.

Conclusions and clinical importance – Modified ciclosporin is effective in the management of feline pemphigus foliaceus and is glucocorticoid sparing.
Stress history increases alcohol intake in relapse: relation to phosphodiesterase 10A
Authors: Logrip Marian L. , Zorrilla Eric P.
Published: June 2012

Stressful experiences can result in elevated alcohol drinking, as exemplified in many individuals with post‐traumatic stress disorder. However, how stress history, rather than acute stressors, influences alcohol intake remains uncertain. To model the protracted effects of past stress, male Wistar rats were subjected to light‐cued footshock (stress history) or light cues alone (control) prior to acquisition of alcohol self‐administration (1‐hour sessions, fixed ratio 1–3, 100 µl of 10% v/v alcohol as reinforcer). Stress history did not alter mean alcohol intake during acquisition of self‐administration, but it increased preference for the alcohol‐paired lever over the inactive lever. Following an extinction period, rats with a history of stress exposure and low baseline alcohol intake showed a twofold elevation in alcohol self‐administration, as compared with low‐drinking rats with no stress history. Similar effects were not seen in rats self‐administering 0.1% sucrose. Analysis of mRNA levels of phosphodiesterase 10A (PDE10A), a dual‐specificity cyclic adenosine monophosphate and cyclic guanosine monophosphate hydrolyzing enzyme, showed that stress history increased Pde10a mRNA levels in the basolateral amygdala and, in low‐drinking rats, the prelimbic prefrontal cortex (plPFC). Pde10a mRNA levels in the plPFC correlated directly with greater alcohol self‐administration during the relapse‐like phase, and greater BLA Pde10a mRNA levels correlated with increased ethanol preference after acquisition. The data demonstrate that stress history sensitizes otherwise low alcohol drinkers to consume more alcohol in a relapse‐like situation and identify stress‐induced neuroadaptations in amygdala and prefrontal cortical Pde10a expression as changes that may drive heightened alcohol intake and preference in susceptible individuals.
Differential Response to Interspecific and Intraspecific Signals Amongst Chickadees
Authors: Grava Angélique , Grava Thibault , Otter Ken A.
Published: June 2012

Black‐capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) and mountain chickadees (P. gambeli) have a similar vocal repertoire and share many other life history traits; yet, black‐capped chickadees are socially dominant to mountain chickadees where populations overlap. Previous research suggested that in contact zones, both species respond weakly to heterospecific songs during the breeding season, and have suggested minimal interspecific competition. However, both black‐capped and mountain chickadees discriminate between conspecific and heterospecific chick‐a‐dee calls, suggesting attention is paid to interspecific signals. We compared the responses of both black‐capped and mountain chickadees to conspecific and heterospecific chick‐a‐dee calls during the winter, when both species compete for the same food resources. We conducted an aviary playback experiment exposing both species to playback composed of heterospecific and conspecific chick‐a‐dee calls, which had been recorded in the context of finding food sources. Responses from the tested birds were measured by recording vocalizations and behaviour. Black‐capped chickadees responded significantly more to conspecific than to heterospecific stimuli, whereas the subordinate mountain chickadees responded to both mountain and black‐capped chickadee calls. Based upon the reactions to playbacks, our results suggest these two closely related species may differ in their perception of the relative threat associated with intra‐ versus interspecific competitors.
Parents’ understanding of and compliance with fasting instruction for pediatric day case surgery
Authors: Cantellow Steve , Lightfoot Jonathan , Bould Helen , Beringer Richard
Published: June 2012

Objective:  To determine whether parents understand and adhere to preoperative fasting instructions.

Aim:  To identify how we may reduce perioperative morbidity relating to failure to fast.

Background:  Children are routinely fasted preoperatively with the aim of reducing the risk of aspiration of gastric contents and its sequelae.

Methods:  Parents of children on the day case ward following elective surgery completed a survey asking: (i) For how long was your child asked to fast? (ii) How long did you ensure your child was fasted of food and clear fluids? (iii) What do you think is the purpose of fasting? We also asked the parents to complete a checklist of items they thought acceptable to consume when fasting.

Results:  Despite affirming fasting status in the preoperative check, 13.5% were not fasted. Parents reported advised fasting times of 1–24 h (median 6) for solids and 0.5–24 h (median 3) for fluids. Children were fasted of solids for 3–40 h (median 9.5) and of fluids for 0.5–24 h (median 5). Regarding the understanding of fasting, 9 referred to aspiration and 53 to the prevention of nausea or vomiting. Thirteen believed that fasting status altered the efficacy of anesthesia. During the fasting period, 4.9% would allow French fries, 22.3% toast/crackers, 17.5% cereal, 14.7% a sweet, 14.9% gum, and 12.6% tea with milk.

Conclusions:  Children we believe to be fasted may not be. Parents may deliberately misrepresent the actual fasting status of their child. Adherence to fasting advice may be affected by parents’ recall and understanding of fasting advice.
The application of TachoSil® for sealing colorectal anastomosis: a feasibility study
Authors: Parker M. C. , Pohlen U. , Borel Rinkes I. H. M. , Delvin T.
Published: June 2012

Aim  Anastomotic leakage is a frequent postoperative complication of colorectal resection. This nonrandomized study assessed the feasibility and safety of applying a haemostatic tissue sealant (TachoSil®) to colorectal anastomoses following resection.

Method  TachoSil was applied as reinforcement of the anastomotic line after laparoscopic or open colorectal resection. The primary endpoint was the proportion of patients for whom TachoSil application was considered feasible by both the investigator and an independent external assessor. Application was considered feasible if TachoSil fully adhered, covered ≥ 1 cm beyond the margin of the anastomotic line and patches overlapped by ≥ 1 cm. Individual investigator assessment of feasibility and adverse events 30 days after surgery were also recorded.

Results  Twenty‐five patients underwent anterior resection (seven open lower, nine open middle‐upper, four laparoscopic lower and five laparoscopic middle‐upper). In six cases a video‐recording was not available because of technical problems. The primary endpoint was met in 12 of the remaining 19 patients (63%; 95% CI 38–84%), while in the other seven the application was recorded as not feasible because the assessor was unable to see the entire anastomosis. No application was assessed as unfeasible on the basis of visual evidence. When assessed by the investigator alone, TachoSil was considered feasible in all but one instance (96%; 95% CI 80–100%). There were 45 adverse events, of which 10 were serious. None was considered related to TachoSil. No deaths were reported.

Conclusion  Application of TachoSil to reinforce the anastomotic line in colorectal resections appears to be feasible and well tolerated.
Quality of rectal cancer surgery and its relationship to surgeon and hospital caseload: a population‐based study
Authors: Comber H. , Sharp L. , Timmons A. , Keane F. B. V.
Published: June 2012

Aim  A population‐based audit of all rectal cancers diagnosed in Ireland in 2007 has shown an inconsistent relationship between surgeon and hospital caseload and a range of quality measures. Better outcome for rectal cancer has been associated with increasing surgeon and hospital caseload, but there is less evidence of how this may relate to quality of care. Our aim was to examine how measures of quality in rectal cancer surgery related to surgeon and hospital workload and to outcome.

Method  All colorectal surgeons in Ireland participated in an audit of rectal cancer based on an evidence‐based instrument. Data were extracted from medical records by trained coders. Generalized linear mixed models were used to determine the relationship between surgeon or hospital caseload and measures of quality of care.

Results  Five hundred and eighty‐one (95%) of the 614 rectal cancers diagnosed in Ireland in 2007 were audited; 49 hospitals and 86 surgeons participated. Ten (28%) hospitals treated fewer than five cases and seven fewer than three. A positive relationship between caseload and quality was seen for a few measures, more frequently for hospital than surgeon caseload. The relationship between caseload and quality of care was inconsistent, suggesting these measures do not represent a single dimension of quality. One‐year survival was negatively associated with hospital caseload. There was no statistically significant relationship between survival and measures of quality of care.

Discussion  Quality of care was inconsistently influenced by surgeon and hospital caseload. Caseload may affect only one aspect of surgical management, such as the quality of preoperative workup, and is not necessarily related to the quality of other hospital care. Simple measures of outcome, such as survival, cannot represent the complexity of this relationship.
‘Distal Doppler‐guided dearterialization’ is highly effective in treating haemorrhoids by transanal haemorrhoidal dearterialization
Authors: Ratto C. , Donisi L. , Parello A. , Litta F. , Zaccone G. , De Simone V.
Published: June 2012

Aim  Transanal haemorrhoidal dearterialization (THD® Doppler) is a surgical procedure involving Doppler‐guided ligation of haemorrhoidal arteries to reduce arterial flow. With proximal Doppler‐guided dearterialization, arterial ligation is achieved by introducing the proctoscope completely into the anal canal and lower rectum. In the present study, distal Doppler‐guided dearterialization (DDD) is performed in the distal 2 cm of the lower rectum. Immediate and short‐term results were evaluated.

Method  One hundred patients with bleeding haemorrhoids, with or without muco‐haemorrhoidal prolapse, underwent THD® Doppler procedure, using DDD of the haemorrhoidal arteries 2 cm above the anorectal junction. Mucopexy was performed in patients with haemorrhoidal prolapse.

Results  The operation time was 20 ± 7 min for dearterialization alone (10 patients), and 30 ± 10 min when mucopexy was added (90 patients). Morbidity included: transient haemorrhoidal thrombosis (two patients); urinary retention (five patients); submucosal abscess (one patient). No patient complained of faecal incontinence. At a median follow‐up of 7.3 (3–17) months, all patients reported an improvement in symptoms. No patients reported bleeding.

Conclusion  DDD of the haemorrhoidal arteries could be a simplified and more effective method of applying THD.
Nurses' engagement in AIDS policy development
Authors: Richter M.S. , Mill J. , Muller C.E. , Kahwa E. , Etowa J. , Dawkins P. , Hepburn C.
Published: June 2012

Richter M.S., Mill J., Muller C.E., Kahwa E., Etowa J., Dawkins P. & Hepburn C. (2013) Nurses' engagement in AIDS policy development. International Nursing Review60, 52–58

Background:  A multidisciplinary team of 20 researchers and research users from six countries – Canada, Jamaica, Barbados, Kenya, Uganda and South Africa – are collaborating on a 5‐year (2007–12) program of research and capacity building project. This program of research situates nurses as leaders in building capacity and promotes collaborative action with other health professionals and decision‐makers to improve health systems for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) nursing care. One of the projects within this program of research focused on the influence of workplace policies on nursing care for individuals and families living with HIV. Nurses are at the forefront of HIV prevention and AIDS care in these countries but have limited involvement in related policy decisions and development. In this paper, we present findings related to the barriers and facilitators for nurses' engagement in policymaking.

Methods:  A participatory action research design guided the program of research. Purposive sampling was used to recruit 51 nurses (unit managers, clinic and healthcare managers, and senior nurse officers) for interviews.

Findings:  Participants expressed the urgent need to develop policies related to AIDS care. The need to raise awareness and to ‘protect’ not only the workers but also the patients were critical reason to develop policies. Nurses in all of the participating countries commented on their lack of involvement in policy development. Lack of communication from the top down and lack of information sharing were mentioned as barriers to participation in policy development. Resources were often not available to implement the policy requirement. Strong support from the management team is necessary to facilitate nurses involvement in policy development.

Conclusions:  The findings of this study clearly express the need for nurses and all other stakeholders to mobilize nurses' involvement in policy development. Long‐term and sustained actions are needed to address gaps on the education, research and practice level.
Graph Bundling by Kernel Density Estimation
Authors: Hurter C. , Ersoy O. , Telea A.
Published: June 2012

We present a fast and simple method to compute bundled layouts of general graphs. For this, we first transform a given graph drawing into a density map using kernel density estimation. Next, we apply an image sharpening technique which progressively merges local height maxima by moving the convolved graph edges into the height gradient flow. Our technique can be easily and efficiently implemented using standard graphics acceleration techniques and produces graph bundlings of similar appearance and quality to state‐of‐the‐art methods at a fraction of the cost. Additionally, we show how to create bundled layouts constrained by obstacles and use shading to convey information on the bundling quality. We demonstrate our method on several large graphs.
Interactive Visualization of Generalized Virtual 3D City Models using Level‐of‐Abstraction Transitions
Authors: Semmo Amir , Trapp Matthias , Kyprianidis Jan Eric , Döllner Jürgen
Published: June 2012

Virtual 3D city models play an important role in the communication of complex geospatial information in a growing number of applications, such as urban planning, navigation, tourist information, and disaster management. In general, homogeneous graphic styles are used for visualization. For instance, photorealism is suitable for detailed presentations, and non‐photorealism or abstract stylization is used to facilitate guidance of a viewer's gaze to prioritized information. However, to adapt visualization to different contexts and contents and to support saliency‐guided visualization based on user interaction or dynamically changing thematic information, a combination of different graphic styles is necessary. Design and implementation of such combined graphic styles pose a number of challenges, specifically from the perspective of real‐time 3D visualization. In this paper, the authors present a concept and an implementation of a system that enables different presentation styles, their seamless integration within a single view, and parametrized transitions between them, which are defined according to tasks, camera view, and image resolution. The paper outlines potential usage scenarios and application fields together with a performance evaluation of the implementation.
Scalable Detection of Spatiotemporal Encounters in Historical Movement Data
Authors: Bak P. , Marder M. , Harary S. , Yaeli A. , Ship H. J.
Published: June 2012

The widespread adoption of location‐aware devices is resulting in the generation of large amounts of spatiotemporal movement data, collected and stored in digital repositories. This forms a fertile ground for domain experts and scientists to analyze such historical data and discover interesting movement behavioral patterns. Experts in many domains, such as transportation, logistics and retail, are interested in detecting and understanding movement patterns and behavior of objects in relation to each other. Their insights can point to optimization potential and reveal deviations from planned behavior. In this paper, we focus on the detection of the encounter patterns as one possible type in movement behavior. These patterns refer to objects being close to one another in terms of space and time. We define scalability as a core requirement when dealing with historical movement data, in order to allow the domain expert to set parameters of the encounter detection algorithm. Our approach leverages a designated data structure and requires only a single pass over chronological data, thus resulting in highly scalable and fast technique to detect encounters. Consequently, users are able to explore their data by interactively specifying the spatial and temporal windows that define encounters. We evaluate our proposed method as a function of its input parameters and data size. We instantiate the proposed method on urban public transportation data, where we found a large number of encounters. We show that single encounters emerge into higher level patterns that are of particular interest and value to the domain.
A Quantized Boundary Representation of 2D Flows
Authors: Levine J. A. , Jadhav S. , Bhatia H. , Pascucci V. , Bremer P.‐T.
Published: June 2012

Analysis and visualization of complex vector fields remain major challenges when studying large scale simulation of physical phenomena. The primary reason is the gap between the concepts of smooth vector field theory and their computational realization. In practice, researchers must choose between either numerical techniques, with limited or no guarantees on how they preserve fundamental invariants, or discrete techniques which limit the precision at which the vector field can be represented. We propose a new representation of vector fields that combines the advantages of both approaches. In particular, we represent a subset of possible streamlines by storing their paths as they traverse the edges of a triangulation. Using only a finite set of streamlines creates a fully discrete version of a vector field that nevertheless approximates the smooth flow up to a user controlled error bound. The discrete nature of our representation enables us to directly compute and classify analogues of critical points, closed orbits, and other common topological structures. Further, by varying the number of divisions (quantizations) used per edge, we vary the resolution used to represent the field, allowing for controlled precision. This representation is compact in memory and supports standard vector field operations.
Drawing Large Graphs by Low‐Rank Stress Majorization
Authors: Khoury Marc , Hu Yifan , Krishnan Shankar , Scheidegger Carlos
Published: June 2012

Optimizing a stress model is a natural technique for drawing graphs: one seeks an embedding into Rd which best preserves the induced graph metric. Current approaches to solving the stress model for a graph with |𝒱| nodes and |ɛ| edges require the full all‐pairs shortest paths (APSP) matrix, which takes O(|𝒱|2 log |ɛ|+|𝒱‖ɛ|) time and O(|𝒱|2) space. We propose a novel algorithm based on a low‐rank approximation to the required matrices. The crux of our technique is an observation that it is possible to approximate the full APSP matrix, even when only a small subset of its entries are known. Our algorithm takes time O(k|𝒱|+|𝒱|log|𝒱|+|ɛ|) per iteration with a preprocessing time of O(k3+ k(|ɛ|+|𝒱| log |𝒱|) + k2|𝒱|) and memory usage of O(k|𝒱|), where a user‐defined parameter k trades off quality of approximation with running time and space. We give experimental results which show, to the best of our knowledge, the largest (albeit approximate) full stress model based layouts to date.
Document Thumbnails with Variable Text Scaling
Authors: Stoffel A. , Strobelt H. , Deussen O. , Keim D. A.
Published: June 2012

Document reader applications usually offer an overview of the layout for each page as thumbnail views. Reading the text in these becomes impossible when the font size becomes very small. We improve the readability of these thumbnails using a distortion method, which retains a readable font size of interesting text while shrinking less interesting text further. In contrast to existing approaches, our method preserves the global layout of a page and is able to show context around important terms. We evaluate our technique and show application examples.
A Design Study of Direct‐Touch Interaction for Exploratory 3D Scientific Visualization
Authors: Klein Tijmen , Guéniat Florimond , Pastur Luc , Vernier Frédéric , Isenberg Tobias
Published: June 2012

We present an interaction design study of several non‐overlapping direct‐touch interaction widgets, postures, and bi‐manual techniques to support the needs of scientists who are exploring a dataset. The final interaction design supports navigation/zoom, cutting plane interaction, a drilling exploration, the placement of seed particles in 3D space, and the exploration of temporal data evolution. To ground our design, we conducted a requirements analysis and used a participatory design approach throughout development. We chose simulations in the field of fluid mechanics as our example domain and, in the paper, discuss our choice of techniques, their adaptation to our target domain, and discuss how they facilitate the necessary combination of visualization control and data exploration. We evaluated our resulting interactive data exploration system with seven fluid mechanics experts and report on their qualitative feedback. While we use flow visualization as our application domain, the developed techniques were designed with generalizability in mind and we discuss several implications of our work on further development of direct‐touch data exploration techniques for scientific visualization in general.
Vismon: Facilitating Analysis of Trade‐Offs, Uncertainty, and Sensitivity In Fisheries Management Decision Making
Authors: Booshehrian Maryam , Möller Torsten , Peterman Randall M. , Munzner Tamara
Published: June 2012

In this design study, we present an analysis and abstraction of the data and task in the domain of fisheries management, and the design and implementation of the Vismon tool to address the identified requirements. Vismon was designed to support sophisticated data analysis of simulation results by managers who are highly knowledgeable about the fisheries domain but not experts in simulation software and statistical data analysis. The previous workflow required the scientists who built the models to spearhead the analysis process. The features of Vismon include sensitivity analysis, comprehensive and global trade‐offs analysis, and a staged approach to the visualization of the uncertainty of the underlying simulation model. The tool was iteratively refined through a multi‐year engagement with fisheries scientists with a two‐phase approach, where an initial diverging experimentation phase to test many alternatives was followed by a converging phase where the set of multiple linked views that proved effective were integrated together in a useable way. Several fisheries scientists have used Vismon to communicate with policy makers, and it is scheduled for deployment to policy makers in Alaska.
ConnectedCharts: Explicit Visualization of Relationships between Data Graphics
Authors: Viau C. , McGuffin M. J.
Published: June 2012

Multidimensional multivariate data can be visualized using many different well‐known charts, such as bar charts, stacked bar charts, grouped bar charts, scatterplots, or pivot tables, or also using more advanced high‐dimensional techniques such as scatterplot matrices (SPLOMs) or parallel coordinate plots (PCPs). These many techniques have different advantages, and users may wish to use several charts or data graphics to understand a dataset from different perspectives. We present ConnectedCharts, a technique for displaying relationships between multiple charts. ConnectedCharts allow for hybrid combinations of bar charts, scatterplots, and parallel coordinates, with curves drawn to show the conceptual links between charts. The charts can be thought of as coordinated views, where linking is achieved not only through interactive brushing, but also with explicitly drawn curves that connect corresponding data tuples or axes. We present a formal description of a design space of many simple charts, and also identify different kinds of connections that can be displayed between related charts. Our prototype implementation demonstrates how the connections between multiple charts can make relationships clearer and can serve to document the history of a user's analytical process, leading to potential applications in visual analytics and dashboard design.
Importance Driven Automatic Color Design for Direct Volume Rendering
Authors: Wang Lei , Kaufman Arie
Published: June 2012

This paper introduces an automatic color design method that is driven by an importance function of the objects within a volumetric dataset. Our method allows the user to intuitively modify the object classification and the importance distribution function in the 2D rendered image. It automatically computes the transfer function, especially the color distribution, to convey the importance of the objects. In our approach, the importance of an object is represented as the attentiveness of a color. In addition, we preserve the color harmony in the rendered image in order to provide a visually pleasing result. In this paper, we propose a set of computational measurements to compute the color attentiveness and color harmony. Our color assignment algorithm supports arbitrary‐dimensional transfer functions and obtains interactive frame rates. Our method involves three color spaces, namely Coloroid system, CIE LChuv, and Adobe RGB color space. It calculates the color attentiveness in CIE LChuv space, and the color harmony in Coloroid system. It, then, assigns the transfer function in a dual space of Adobe RGB space and renders the resulting image in Adobe RGB space. We conducted a detailed user study, which proves that our method successfully conveys the importance distributions. Our contribution in this paper is not only our importance driven approach, but also our computational measurements and our color assignment algorithm.
A Taxonomy of Visual Cluster Separation Factors
Authors: Sedlmair M. , Tatu A. , Munzner T. , Tory M.
Published: June 2012

We provide two contributions, a taxonomy of visual cluster separation factors in scatterplots, and an in‐depth qualitative evaluation of two recently proposed and validated separation measures. We initially intended to use these measures to provide guidance for the use of dimension reduction (DR) techniques and visual encoding (VE) choices, but found that they failed to produce reliable results. To understand why, we conducted a systematic qualitative data study covering a broad collection of 75 real and synthetic high‐dimensional datasets, four DR techniques, and three scatterplot‐based visual encodings. Two authors visually inspected over 800 plots to determine whether or not the measures created plausible results. We found that they failed in over half the cases overall, and in over two‐thirds of the cases involving real datasets. Using open and axial coding of failure reasons and separability characteristics, we generated a taxonomy of visual cluster separability factors. We iteratively refined its explanatory clarity and power by mapping the studied datasets and success and failure ranges of the measures onto the factor axes. Our taxonomy has four categories, ordered by their ability to influence successors: Scale, Point Distance, Shape, and Position. Each category is split into Within‐Cluster factors such as density, curvature, isotropy, and clumpiness, and Between‐Cluster factors that arise from the variance of these properties, culminating in the overarching factor of class separation. The resulting taxonomy can be used to guide the design and the evaluation of cluster separation measures.
Semi‐Supervised Dimensionality Reduction based on Partial Least Squares for Visual Analysis of High Dimensional Data
Authors: Paiva Jose Gustavo S. , Schwartz William Robson , Pedrini Helio , Minghim Rosane
Published: June 2012

Dimensionality reduction is employed for visual data analysis as a way to obtaining reduced spaces for high dimensional data or to mapping data directly into 2D or 3D spaces. Although techniques have evolved to improve data segregation on reduced or visual spaces, they have limited capabilities for adjusting the results according to user's knowledge. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to handling both dimensionality reduction and visualization of high dimensional data, taking into account user's input. It employs Partial Least Squares (PLS), a statistical tool to perform retrieval of latent spaces focusing on the discriminability of the data. The method employs a training set for building a highly precise model that can then be applied to a much larger data set very effectively. The reduced data set can be exhibited using various existing visualization techniques. The training data is important to code user's knowledge into the loop. However, this work also devises a strategy for calculating PLS reduced spaces when no training data is available. The approach produces increasingly precise visual mappings as the user feeds back his or her knowledge and is capable of working with small and unbalanced training sets.
Tracing Tuples Across Dimensions: A Comparison of Scatterplots and Parallel Coordinate Plots
Authors: Kuang X. , Zhang H. , Zhao S. , McGuffin M.J.
Published: June 2012

One of the fundamental tasks for analytic activity is retrieving (i.e., reading) the value of a particular quantity in an information visualization. However, few previous studies have compared user performance in such value retrieval tasks for different visualizations. We present an experimental comparison of user performance (time and error distance) across four multivariate data visualizations. Three variants of scatterplot (SCP) visualizations, namely SCPs with common vertical axes (SCP‐common), SCPs with a staircase layout (SCP‐staircase), and SCPs with rotated axes between neighboring cells (SCP‐rotated), and a baseline parallel coordinate plots (PCP) were compared. Results show that the baseline PCP is better than SCP‐rotated and SCP‐staircase under all conditions, while the difference between SCP‐common and PCP depends on the dimensionality and density of the dataset. PCP shows advantages over SCP‐common when the dimensionality and density of the dataset are low, but SCP‐common eventually outperforms PCP as data dimensionality and density increase. The results suggest guidelines for the use of SCPs and PCPs that can benefit future researchers and practitioners.
Do Non-Response Follow-Ups Improve or Reduce Data Quality?: A Review of the Existing Literature
Authors: Olson Kristen
Published: June 2012

The paper systematically reviews existing literature on the relationship between the level of effort to recruit a sampled person and the measurement quality of survey data. Hypotheses proposed for this relationship are reviewed. Empirical findings for the relationship between level of effort as measured by paradata (the number of follow-up attempts, refusal conversion and time in the field) and question-specific item non-response rates, aggregate measures of item non-response rates, response accuracy and various measurement errors on attitudinal questions are examined through a qualitative review.
Differential effects of ERP systems on user outcomes—a longitudinal investigation
Authors: Murphy Glen D. , Chang Artemis , Unsworth Kerrie
Published: June 2012

Adopting a model of job enrichment we report on a longitudinal case investigating the perceived impact of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system on user job design characteristics. Our results indicated that in the context of an ERP geared towards centralisation and standardisation the extent to which users perceived an increase or decrease in job enrichment was associated with aspects such as formal authority and the nature of their work role. Experienced operational employees proficient in the original legacy system perceived ERP system protocols to constrain their actions, limit training and increase dependence on others in the workflow. Conversely, managerial users reported a number of benefits relating to report availability, improved organisational transparency and increased overall job enrichment. These results supported our argument concerning the relationship between ERPs with a standardisation intent and positive job enrichment outcomes for managerial users and negative job‐related outcomes for operational users.
The differential impact of ICT on employees: narratives from a hi‐tech organisation
Authors: Barnes Sally‐Anne
Published: June 2012

This paper draws upon findings from a case study, which examined the implementation of information and communication technologies within a hi‐tech organisation. It explores how technology became embedded within the organization, altering working practices. It concludes that embedding technology needs to be undertaken at an individual level to be successful.
The Efficiency of Performance‐Based Fee Funds
Authors: Díaz‐Mendoza Ana C. , López‐Espinosa Germán , Martínez Miguel A.
Published: June 2012

This paper compares the efficiency of mutual funds that charge management fees based totally or partially on returns (performance) with those that charge them exclusively on assets under management. We analyse Spanish risky mutual funds during 1999–2009 for which both types of management fees are authorised. We find that performance‐based fee funds perform significantly better than the other risky funds considered. Moreover, a strongly positive performance‐expenses relation is found for such funds, and negative for the other. These results seem to indicate more efficient management in performance‐based fee funds, in contrast with their low presence in the fund industry.
Eosinophilic annular erythema is a peculiar subtype in the spectrum of Wells syndrome: a multicentre long‐term follow‐up study
Authors: El‐Khalawany M. , Al‐Mutairi N. , Sultan M. , Shaaban D.
Published: June 2012

Background/Objective  Eosinophilic annular erythema (EAE) was proposed to describe annular skin lesions associated with tissue eosinophilia, however, its relation to Well’s syndrome (WS) remains a source of controversy. We studied a series of patients to increase awareness of this entity and to clarify its relation to WS.

Methods  A multicentre study in which the clinical records, histological findings, laboratory results, therapeutic responses and follow‐up of 10 patients were demonstrated.

Results  The study included seven women and three men with age ranging from 31 to 54 years. The duration of the disease ranged from 3 to 28 months. All patients showed involvement of trunk and extremities. Early lesions were manifested as erythematous plaques, which progressed to well‐developed figurate lesions and ended as large annular lesions with pigmented centre and elevated border. Flame figures were only observed in well‐developed and long‐standing lesions. Blood eosinophilia was found in all patients with different grades. Associated disorders included chronic gastritis, diabetes mellitus, chronic hepatitis‐C virus infection and chronic kidney disease. The disease showed chronic course with high relapse rate and resistance to various therapeutic modalities including systemic steroid alone and in combination with hydroxychloroquine and cyclosporine.

Conclusion  We believe that EAE is a peculiar clinical variant in the spectrum of WS, which is characterized by a chronic course, resistance to treatment and high relapse rate. The diagnosis and evaluation of this condition need a close monitoring with repeated clinical, histological and laboratory assessment.
Psoriasis and cardiovascular risk. Assessment by different cardiovascular risk scores
Authors: Fernández‐Torres R. , Pita‐Fernández S. , Fonseca E.
Published: June 2012

Background:  Psoriasis is an inflammatory disease associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. However, very few studies determine cardiovascular risk by means of Framingham risk score or other indices more appropriate for countries with lower prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors.

Objectives  To determine multiple cardiovascular risk scores in psoriasis patients, the relation between cardiovascular risk and psoriasis features and to compare our results with those in the literature.

Methods  We assessed demographic data, smoking status, psoriasis features, blood pressure and analytical data. Cardiovascular risk was determined by means of Framingham, SCORE, DORICA and REGICOR scores.

Results  A total of 395 patients (59.7% men and 40.3% women) aged 18–86 years were included. The proportion of patients at intermediate and high risk of suffering a major cardiovascular event in the next 10 years was 30.5% and 11.4%, respectively, based on Framingham risk score; 26.9% and 2.2% according to DORICA and 6.8% and 0% using REGICOR score. According to the SCORE index, 22.1% of patients had a high risk of death due to a cardiovascular event over the next 10 years. Cardiovascular risk was not related to psoriasis characteristics, except for the Framingham index, with higher risk in patients with more severe psoriasis (P = 0.032).

Conclusions  A considerable proportion of patients had intermediate or high cardiovascular risk, without relevant relationship with psoriasis characteristics and treatment schedules. Therefore, systematic evaluation of cardiovascular risk scores in all psoriasis patients could be useful to identify those with increased cardiovascular risk, subsidiary of lifestyle changes or therapeutic interventions.
Partitioning of nitroxynil, oxyclozanide and levamisole residues from milk to cream, skim milk and skim milk powder
Authors: POWER CLARE , SAYERS RÍONA , O’BRIEN BERNADETTE , BLOEMHOFF YRIS , DANAHER MARTIN , FUREY AMBROSE , JORDAN KIERAN
Published: June 2012

Veterinary drugs are necessary to control fluke in animals, and if not properly used, residues of these drugs may be found in milk. The aim of this study was to determine whether residues of nitroxynil, levamisole and oxyclozanide in milk partition into skim milk powder during processing. Milk targeted to contain high, medium or low levels of residue was obtained following treatment of trial animals. On separation of cream and skim milk, > 90% of the residue partitioned with the skim milk in all cases. During powder processing, the residues were not degraded with almost 90% of the residue detected in the powder.
The concentrations of some hormones and growth factors in bovine and human colostrums: Short communication
Authors: AI ZHAO , YUMEI ZHANG , TITI YANG , QINGHAI SHENG , XIAOHONG KANG , PEIYU WANG
Published: June 2012

This study compared different levels of certain hormones and growth factors between bovine and human colostrums. Colostrums were collected from seven Holstein cows and seven healthy humans. Prolactin, epidermal growth factor (EGF) and nerve growth factor (NGF) had higher levels in human colostrums over the 3 days. A higher level of platelet‐derived growth factor (PDGF) was found in bovine colostrums on day three; estradiol had higher levels on day three in both human and bovine colostrums. To minimise the differences of active components’ concentrations between these two types of colostrums, prolactin, EGF and NGF should be considered for addition into bovine colostrum products.
Land‐Cover Change and Avian Diversity in the Conterminous United States
Authors: RITTENHOUSE CHADWICK D. , PIDGEON ANNA M. , ALBRIGHT THOMAS P. , CULBERT PATRICK D. , CLAYTON MURRAY K. , FLATHER CURTIS H. , MASEK JEFFREY G. , RADELOFF VOLKER C.
Published: June 2012

Abstract:  Changes in land use and land cover have affected and will continue to affect biological diversity worldwide. Yet, understanding the spatially extensive effects of land‐cover change has been challenging because data that are consistent over space and time are lacking. We used the U.S. National Land Cover Dataset Land Cover Change Retrofit Product and North American Breeding Bird Survey data to examine land‐cover change and its associations with diversity of birds with principally terrestrial life cycles (landbirds) in the conterminous United States. We used mixed‐effects models and model selection to rank associations by ecoregion. Land cover in 3.22% of the area considered in our analyses changed from 1992 to 2001, and changes in species richness and abundance of birds were strongly associated with land‐cover changes. Changes in species richness and abundance were primarily associated with changes in nondominant types of land cover, yet in many ecoregions different types of land cover were associated with species richness than were associated with abundance. Conversion of natural land cover to anthropogenic land cover was more strongly associated with changes in bird species richness and abundance than persistence of natural land cover in nearly all ecoregions and different covariates were most strongly associated with species richness than with abundance in 11 of 17 ecoregions. Loss of grassland and shrubland affected bird species richness and abundance in forested ecoregions. Loss of wetland was associated with bird abundance in forested ecoregions. Our findings highlight the value of understanding changes in nondominant land cover types and their association with bird diversity in the United States.
Intact Faunal Assemblages in the Modern Era
Authors: SANJAYAN M. , SAMBERG LEAH H. , BOUCHER TIMOTHY , NEWBY JESSE
Published: June 2012

Abstract:  In light of limited conservation funding, global conservation initiatives are increasingly focused on regions of the planet that have been identified as valuable on the basis of their species diversity, the vulnerability of resident species to extinction, or the perceived pristine nature of their ecosystems. Regions that have been resilient to high rates of extinction have not yet been systematically considered in conservation efforts. We used published range maps for 392 vertebrate species to compare historical and current species ranges. We used the results of the comparison to identify regions of the globe in which no known vertebrate species has been extirpated in the past 200 years. In 17 regions, no detectable vertebrate extinctions occurred in the past 200 years. In 6 other regions, reintroductions of species restored the full historic complement of vertebrate species. The effects of humans on a landscape, as measured by the human‐footprint index, although useful, was not a singularly good predictor of faunal intactness because more than 20% of intact land area was in heavily affected areas (50% of Earth's land area), and several regions where humans have had very little effect did not have intact faunas. Only 22% of intact land area was within protected‐area networks. High‐latitude areas were particularly underrepresented; they made up 3 of the 4 least‐protected areas in our analyses. Our results indicate that although protected areas are in some cases associated with the prevention of extinctions, there are many regions in which human activity coexists with intact vertebrate assemblages. In addition, our new approach for assessing the value of global regions for conservation identifies several regions that are not represented in other prioritization metrics.
Xer‐cise in Helicobacter pylori: One‐step Transformation for the Construction of Markerless Gene Deletions
Authors: Debowski Aleksandra W. , Gauntlett Jonathan C. , Li Hong , Liao Tingting , Sehnal Miriam , Nilsson Hans‐Olof , Marshall Barry J. , Benghezal Mohammed
Published: June 2012

Background

Xer‐cise is an efficient selectable marker removal technique that was first applied in
Bacillus subtilis and
Escherichia coli for the construction of markerless gene deletions. Xer‐cise marker excision takes advantage of the presence of site‐specific Xer recombination in most bacterial species for the resolution of chromosome dimers at the dif site during replication. The identification and functional characterization of the difH/XerH recombination system enabled the development of Xer‐cise in
Helicobacter pylori.

Methods

Markerless deletions were obtained by a single natural transformation step of the Xer‐cise cassette containing rpsL
and cat genes, for streptomycin susceptibility and chloramphenicol resistance respectively, flanked by difH
sites and neighboring homologous sequences of the target gene. Insertion/deletion recombinant
H. pylori were first selected on chloramphenicol‐containing medium followed by selection on streptomycin‐containing medium for clones that underwent XerH mediated excision of the rpsL‐cat cassette, resulting in a markerless deletion.

Results

XerH‐mediated removal of the antibiotic marker was successfully applied in three different
H. pylori strains to obtain markerless gene deletions at very high efficiencies. An unmarked triple deletion mutant was also constructed by sequential deletion of ureA, vacA
and HP0366 and removal of the selectable marker at each step. The triple mutant had no growth defect suggesting that multiple difH
sites per chromosome can be tolerated without affecting bacterial fitness.

Conclusion

Xer‐cise eliminates the need for multiple passages on non selective plates and subsequent screening of clones for loss of the antibiotic cassette by replica plating.