bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Mobile Agent-Based Technique for Medical Monitoring (Supports of Patients with Diabetes)
Authors: Chaouch Zineb , Tamali Mohammed
Published: March 2014

Telemedicine is a particularly useful means to optimize the quality of care by fast medical exchanges that benefit patients whose state of health requires an appropriate and fast response, regardless of their geographic location. In this paper, the authors propose a mobile agent based architecture (DiabMAS) for remote medical monitoring of diabetic patients on an outpatient basis using mobile devices (laptops, PDAs, etc ...) by exploring the new operating Mobile system, Android. DiabMAS is a multi-agent system having as main objective the improvement of the transmission of information between patients and their physicians, especially the management of specific and critical cases.
Rational Drug Design
Authors: Barakat Khaled H. , Houghton Michael , Tyrrel D. Lorne , Tuszynski Jack A.
Published: March 2014

For the past three decades rationale drug design (RDD) has been developing as an innovative, rapid and successful way to discover new drug candidates. Many strategies have been followed and several targets with diverse structures and different biological roles have been investigated. Despite the variety of computational tools available, one can broadly divide them into two major classes that can be adopted either separately or in combination. The first class involves structure-based drug design, when the target's 3-dimensional structure is available or it can be computationally generated using homology modeling. On the other hand, when only a set of active molecules is available, and the structure of the target is unknown, ligand-based drug design tools are usually used. This review describes some recent advances in rational drug design, summarizes a number of their practical applications, and discusses both the advantages and shortcomings of the various techniques used.
Capturing Consumer Preference in System Requirements Through Business Strategy
Authors: Giannoulis Constantinos , Svee Eric-Oluf , Zdravkovic Jelena
Published: March 2014

A core concern within Business-IT alignment is coordinating strategic initiatives and plans with Information Systems (IS). Substantial work has been done on linking strategy to requirements for IS development, but it has usually been focused on the core value exchanges offered by the business, and thus overlooking other aspects that influence the implementation of strategy. One of these, consumer preferences, has been proven to influence the successful provisioning of the business's customer value proposition, and this study aims to establish a conceptual link between both strategy and consumer preferences to system requirements. The core contention is that reflecting consumer preferences through business strategy in system requirements allows for the development of aligned systems, and therefore systems that better support a consumer orientation. The contribution of this paper is an approach to establish such alignment, with this being accomplished through the proposal of a consumer preference meta-model mapped to a business strategy meta-model further linked to a system requirements technique. The validity of this proposal is demonstrated through a case study carried out within an institution of higher education in Sweden.
Control Automation to Reduce Costs of Control
Authors: Christiaanse Rob , Hulstijn Joris
Published: March 2014

Much compliance effort concerns adherence to contracts. Parties to a contract need to make sure that the other parties will deliver. To this end they may require additional controls in the business process to monitor delivery and induce contractual penalties when needed. Controls have costs. In this paper the authors argue that introducing fully automated controls will help to reduce control costs, because (i) they can prevent misstatements (compliance by design) or (ii) they increase the quality of evidence and thereby reduce the audit risk for the external auditor and corresponding audit fees. The line of reasoning is illustrated by a case study of the implementation process of automated controls on the procurement process for public transport services for the elderly and disabled. This is a complex and heavily regulated domain. The case study indicates that control automation makes monitoring compliance to contracts in such complex domains feasible and that using control automation can in fact reduce the costs of control.
Temporal-Based Video Event Detection and Retrieval
Authors: Chen Min
Published: March 2014

The fast proliferation of video data archives has increased the need for automatic video content analysis and semantic video retrieval. Since temporal information is critical in conveying video content, in this chapter, an effective temporal-based event detection framework is proposed to support high-level video indexing and retrieval. The core is a temporal association mining process that systematically captures characteristic temporal patterns to help identify and define interesting events. This framework effectively tackles the challenges caused by loose video structure and class imbalance issues. One of the unique characteristics of this framework is that it offers strong generality and extensibility with the capability of exploring representative event patterns with little human interference. The temporal information and event detection results can then be input into our proposed distributed video retrieval system to support the high-level semantic querying, selective video browsing and event-based video retrieval.
BDD-Based Combinatorial Keyword Query Processing under a Taxonomy Model
Authors: Minato Shin-ichi , Spyratos Nicolas
Published: March 2014

Digital libraries are one of the key systems for an IT society, and supporting easy access to them is an important technical issue between a human and an intelligent system. Here the authors consider a publish/subscribe system for digital libraries which continuously evaluates queries over a large repository containing document descriptions. The subscriptions, the query expressions and the document descriptions, all rely on a taxonomy that is a hierarchically organized set of keywords, or terms. The digital library supports insertion, update and removal of a document. Each of these operations is seen as an event that must be notified only to those users whose subscriptions match the document's description. In this chapter, the authors present a novel method of processing such keyword queries. Their method is based on Binary Decision Diagram (BDD), an efficient data structure for manipulating large-scale Boolean functions. The authors compile the given keyword queries into a BDD under a taxonomy model. The number of possible keyword sets can be exponentially large, but the compiled BDD gives a compact representation, and enabling a highly efficient matching process. In addition, the authors' method can deal with any Boolean combination of keywords from the taxonomy, while the previous result considered only a conjunctive keyword set. In this chapter, they describe the basic idea of their new method, and then the authors show their preliminary experimental result applying to a document set with large-scale keyword domain under a real-life taxonomy structure.
Intra-Class Threshold Generation in Multimodal Biometric Systems by Set Estimation Technique
Authors: Karmakar Dhiman , Datta Madhura , Murthy C.A.
Published: March 2014

Biometric recognition techniques attracted the researchers for the last two decades due to their many applications in the field of security. In recent times multimodal biometrics have been found to perform better, in several aspects, over unimodal biometrics. The classical approach for recognition is based on dissimilarity measure and for the sake of proper classification one needs to put a threshold on the dissimilarity value. In this paper an intra-class threshold for multimodal biometric recognition procedure has been developed. The authors' selection method of threshold is based on statistical set estimation technique which is applied on a minimal spanning tree and consisting of fused face and iris images. The fusion is performed here on feature level using face and iris biometrics. The proposed method, applied on several multimodal datasets, found to perform better than traditional ROC curve based threshold technique.
Comparative evaluation of prophylactic use of pregabalin, gabapentin and diclofenac sodium for prevention of succinylcholine-induced myalgia
Authors: Pandey CK , Karna ST , Tandon M , Pandey VK , Singh A
Published: March 2014

Context:

Succinylcholine a depolarizing muscle relaxant with rapid onset, predictable course and short duration of action is associated with myalgia. Aim: The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of pregabalin, gabapentin and diclofenac on the incidence and severity of succinylcholine-induced myalgia.

Settings and Design:

Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital.

Materials and Methods:

A total of 120 patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy were randomly assigned into three groups: Pregabalin group received 150 mg of pregabalin, gabapentin group received 600 mg of gabapentin and diclofenac group received 100 mg of diclofenac sodium orally 2 h prior to surgery. Anesthesia was induced with fentanyl 3 μg/kg, propofol 2-2.5 mg/kg and succinylcholine 1.5 mg/kg and was maintained with oxygen with sevoflurane in the air and intermittent vecuronium bromide. A blinded observer recorded post-operative pain scores on visual analog scale at different time intervals and myalgia at 24 h. Post-operative pain relief was provided with fentanyl based patient-controlled analgesia. Fentanyl consumption in 24 h was recorded as a primary outcome.

Statistical Analysis:

Patients’ characteristics and total fentanyl consumption were compared using one-way ANOVA followed by post-hoc test. Pain score was compared amongst the groups using Kruskal Wallis test.

Results:

The myalgia occurred in 15, 14 and 13 patients in pregabalin, gabapentin and diclofenac sodium group respectively (P > 0.85). Patients in diclofenac group had significantly higher fentanyl consumption (674.85 ± 115.58 μg) compared with pregabalin group (601.87 ± 129.57 μg) (95% confidence interval [CI] = 34.8-120.7) and gabapentin group (612.29 ± 105.12 μg) (95% CI = 14.9-170.5). However, there was no significant difference in fentanyl consumption between pregabalin and gabapentin groups (95% CI = −34.8-120.7). There was a significant difference in visual analog score at time points 12, 18 and 24 h among the study groups.

Conclusion:

Pre-treatment with pregabalin, gabapentin and diclofenac had equal efficacy in reducing the incidence and severity of succinylcholine-induced myalgia. However, pre-treatment with pregabalin and gabapentin decreased post-operative pain scores and fentanyl consumption.
Evaluation of normal abdominal aortic diameters in the Indian population using computed tomography
Authors: Jasper A , Harshe G , Keshava SN , Kulkarni G , Stephen E , Agarwal S
Published: March 2014

Objectives:

The aim of this study was to establish normal diameters for the suprarenal and infrarenal abdominal aorta measured at T12 and L3 vertebral levels in the Indian population and to study the variation in aortic diameters with age, sex, height, weight, body mass index (BMI), and body surface area (BSA).

Materials and Methods:

One hundred and forty-two patients who underwent helical contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) scans of the abdomen for non-cardiovascular reasons were recruited.. The mean internal diameters of the suprarenal and infrarenal abdominal aorta (maximum anteroposterior and transverse diameter) were measured at T12 and L3 vertebral levels and tabulated according to various age groups for both men and women. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to evaluate the correlation between aortic diameters, height, weight, BSA, and BMI.

Results:

The mean diameters of the suprarenal and infrarenal abdominal aorta measured at T12 and L3 vertebral levels, in men were 19.0 ± 2.3 and 13.8 ± 1.9 mm and in women 17.1 ± 2.3 and 12.0 ± 1.6 mm, respectively. The aortic diameter progressively increased in caliber with increasing age of the patients and was smaller in women than men. A significant positive correlation was found in men between the suprarenal and infrarenal aortic diameters and weight, BSA, and BMI. In women, this correlation was significant in the infrarenal aorta but not in the suprarenal aorta.

Conclusion:

We obtained a set of normal values for the abdominal aorta in the Indian population. The aortic diameters correlated with age, gender, and body size of the patients as seen with previously published data in the Western population. A brief comparison of data between Indian and Western population showed that the values obtained were less than published elsewhere and hence, this should be considered while formulating intervention protocols.
Luffa echinata
Authors: Giri S , Lokesh CR , Sahu S , Gupta N
Published: March 2014

Bristly luffa (Luffa echinata), a member of the cucurbitaceae family is an Ayurvedic medicinal plant, which has been used in the traditional system of medicine for variety of symptoms. The active constituents like cucurbitacin, saponin, echinatin, β-Sitosterol, oleanolic acid and flavonoids have important pathophysiological effects on human body. However, there is no earlier published report of any toxicity on humans. We report a case of a 50-year-old gentleman, who presented with gastrointestinal bleeding, deranged liver function and shock following consumption of dried fruits of Luffa echinata soaked overnight in water. He had antral gastritis and duodenal erosions on upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and was managed conservatively and recovered completely.
Electrocardiographic Findings in Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy: ECG Evolution and Its Difference from the ECG of Acute Coronary Syndrome
Authors: Namgung June
Published: March 2014

Background

Electrocardiogram (ECG) manifestations of takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TC) produce ST-segment elevation or T-wave inversion, mimicking acute coronary syndrome (ACS). We describe the ECG manifestation of TC, including ECG evolution, and its different points from ACS.

Methods

We studied 37 consecutive patients (age 67 ± 15 years, range 23-89, M:F = 12:25) from March 2004 to November 2012 with a diagnosis of TC who were proven to have apical ballooning on echocardiography or left ventricular angiography and normal coronary artery. We analyzed their standard 12-lead ECGs, including rate, PR interval, QRS duration, corrected QT (QTc) interval, ECG evolutions, and arrhythmia events.

Results

Two common ECG findings in TC were ST-segment elevation (n = 13, 35%) and T inversion (n = 24, 65%), mostly in the precordial leads. After ST-segment resolution, in a few days (3.5 days), diffuse and often deep T-wave inversion developed. Eight patients (22%) had transient Q-waves lasting a few days in precordial leads. No reciprocal ST-segment depression was noted. T-wave inversion continued for several months. QT prolongation (>440 milliseconds) was observed in 37 patients (97%). There were no significant life-threatening arrhythmias except atrial fibrillation (n = 6, 16%).

Conclusion

There are distinct differences between the ECGs of TC and ACS. These differences will help to differentiate TC from ACS.
Bounded theories for polyspace computability
Authors: Bianconi Ricardo , Ferreira Gilda , Silva Emmanuel
Published: March 2014

We present theories of bounded arithmetic and weak analysis whose provably total functions (with appropriate graphs) are the polyspace computable functions. More precisely, inspired in Ferreira’s systems

\mathsf{PTCA}

,

\mathsf{\Sigma^{b}_1}\textbf{-}\mathsf{NIA}

and

\mathsf{BTFA}

in the polytime framework, we propose analogue theories concerning polyspace computability. Since the techniques we employ in the characterization of

\mathsf{PSPACE}

via formal systems (e.g. Herbrand’s theorem, cut-elimination theorem and the expansion of models) are similar to the ones involved in the polytime setting, we focus on what is specific of polyspace and explains the lift from

\mathsf{PTIME}

to

\mathsf{PSPACE}

.
Currículo interdisciplinar: contradições, limites e possibilidades
Authors: Thiesen Juares da Silva
Published: March 2014

O presente artigo, organizado no âmbito das pesquisas sobre currículo que vem sendo realizadas, analisam-se as contradições, os limites e as possibilidades que marcam a complexa relação entre currículo e interdisciplinaridade. Com base em referenciais da chamada filosofia da práxis e das abordagens críticas do campo do currículo, apontam-se algumas das contradições marcadamente presentes em projetos que afirmam interdisciplinarizar o currículo pelas vias da orientação didática e metodológica ou por intermédio da prescrição de propostas curriculares no âmbito da oficialidade. Como pressuposto conceitual, assume-se a interdisciplinaridade em duplo sentido: como princípio (imanência) que manifesta o movimento do real, portanto, da gênese da produção histórica do mundo e do conhecimento, e como método (exterioridade) que orienta certa organização do mundo e dos saberes por intermédio das linguagens. Sob esse pressuposto, defende-se que a “interdisciplinaridade curricular” somente se efetiva no âmbito da prática dos sujeitos como atos de aprendizagem e de apropriação mediada do mundo e que, no plano da organização curricular, o que se constrói são formas integradoras de tratamento do conhecimento e da cultura, seja pela integração de conteúdos, pela busca de alternativas didáticas ou pelo estabelecimento de interfaces entre disciplinas curriculares. Defende-se, portanto, que nas configurações curriculares formais – expressões organizativas da formação escolar, ainda que se caminhe no sentido da interdisciplinarização das formas de apropriação dos saberes e da cultura, cinde-se, em alguma medida, a produção da vida, do conhecimento e de sua socialização.
Mass spectrometry of refractory black carbon particles from six sources: carbon-cluster and oxygenated ions
Authors: Corbin J. C. , Sierau B. , Gysel M. , Laborde M. , Keller A. , Kim J. , Petzold A. , Onasch T. B. , Lohmann U. , Mensah A. A.
Published: March 2014

Abstract. We discuss the major mass spectral features of different types of refractory carbonaceous particles, ionized after laser vaporization with an Aerodyne high-resolution soot-particle aerosol mass spectrometer (SP-AMS). The SP-AMS was operated with a switchable 1064 nm laser and a 600 °C thermal vaporizer, yielding respective measurements of the refractory and non-refractory particle components. Six samples were investigated, all of which were composed primarily of refractory material: fuel-rich and fuel-lean propane/air diffusion-flame combustion particles; graphite-spark-generated particles; a commercial fullerene-enriched soot; Regal Black, a commercial carbon black; and nascent aircraft-turbine combustion particles. All samples exhibited a spectrum of carbon-cluster ions Cxn+ in their refractory mass spectrum. Smaller clusters (x < 6) were found to dominate the Cxn+ distribution. For fullerene soot, fuel-rich-flame particles and spark-generated particles, significant Cxn+ clusters at x ≫ 6 were present, with significant contributions from multiply charged ions (n > 1). In all six cases, the ions C1+ and C3+ contributed over 60% to the total C1 5 were present. When such signals were present, C1+ / C3+ was close to 1. When absent, C1+ / C3+ was < 0.8. This ratio may therefore serve as a proxy to distinguish between the two types of spectra in atmospheric SP-AMS measurements. Significant refractory oxygenated ions such as CO+ and CO2+ were also observed for all samples. We discuss these signals in detail for Regal Black, and describe their formation via decomposition of oxygenated moieties incorporated into the refractory carbon structure. These species may be of importance in atmospheric processes such as water uptake and heterogeneous chemistry. If atmospherically stable, these oxidized species may be useful for distinguishing between different combustion sources. If unstable, they may provide a means to estimate the atmospheric age of an rBC sample. Future studies should attempt to establish which of these scenarios is more realistic.
Impacts of climate and emission changes on nitrogen deposition in Europe: a multi-model study
Authors: Simpson D. , Andersson C. , Christensen J.H. , Engardt M. , Geels C. , Nyiri A. , Posch M. , Soares J. , Sofiev M. , Wind P. , Langner J.
Published: March 2014

Abstract. The impact of climate and emissions changes on the deposition of reactive nitrogen (Nr) over Europe was studied using four offline regional chemistry transport models (CTMs) driven by the same global projection of future climate over the period 2000–2050. Anthropogenic emissions for the years 2005 and 2050 were used for simulations of both present and future periods in order to isolate the impact of climate change, hemispheric boundary conditions and emissions, and to assess the robustness of the result across the different models. The results from these four CTMs clearly show that the main driver of future N-deposition changes is the specified emission change. Under the specified emission scenario for 2050, emissions of oxidised nitrogen were reduced substantially, whereas emissions of NH3 increase to some extent, and these changes are largely reflected in the modelled concentrations and depositions. The lack of sulphur and oxidised nitrogen in the future atmosphere results in a much larger fraction of NHx being present in the form of gaseous ammonia. Predictions for wet and total deposition were broadly consistent, although the three fine-scale models resolve European emission areas and changes better than the hemispheric-scale model. The biggest difference in the models is for predictions of individual N-compounds. One model (EMEP) was used to explore changes in critical loads, also in conjunction with speculative climate-induced increases in NH3 emissions. These calculations suggest that the area of ecosystems which exceed critical loads is reduced from 64% for year 2005 emissions levels to 50% for currently estimated 2050 levels. A possible climate-induced increase in NH3 emissions could worsen the situation, with areas exceeded increasing again to 57% (for a 30% NH3 emission increase).
A global non-hydrostatic model study of a downward coupling through the tropical tropopause layer during a stratospheric sudden warming
Authors: Eguchi N. , Kodera K. , Nasuno T.
Published: March 2014

Abstract. The dynamical coupling process between the stratosphere and troposphere in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) during a stratospheric sudden warming (SSW) in boreal winter was investigated using simulation data from a global non-hydrostatic model (NICAM) that does not use cumulus parameterization. The model reproduced well the observed tropical tropospheric changes during the SSW including the enhancement of convective activity following the amplification of planetary waves. Deep convective activity was enhanced in the latitude zone 20–10° S, in particular over the southwest Pacific and southwest Indian Ocean. Although the upwelling in the TTL was correlated with that in the stratosphere, the temperature tendency in the TTL was mainly controlled by diabatic heating originating from cloud formation. This result suggests that the stratospheric meridional circulation affects cloud formation in the TTL.
Tunable diode laser in-situ CH4 measurements aboard the CARIBIC passenger aircraft: instrument performance assessment
Authors: Dyroff C. , Zahn A. , Sanati S. , Christner E. , Rauthe-Schöch A. , Schuck T. J.
Published: March 2014

Abstract. A laser spectrometer for automated monthly measurements of methane (CH4) mixing ratios aboard the CARIBIC passenger aircraft is presented. The instrument is based on a commercial Fast Greenhouse Gas Analyser (FGGA, Los Gatos Res.), which was adapted to meet the requirements imposed by unattended airborne operation. It was characterised in the laboratory with respect to instrument stability, precision, cross sensitivity to H2O, and accuracy. For airborne operation, a calibration strategy is described that utilises CH4 measurements obtained from flask samples taken during the same flights. The precision of airborne measurements is 2 ppb for 10 s averages. The accuracy at aircraft cruising altitude is 3.85 ppb. During aircraft ascent and descent, where no flask samples were obtained, instrumental drifts can be less accurately determined and the uncertainty is estimated to be 12.4 ppb. A linear humidity bias correction was applied to the CH4 measurements, which was most important in the lower troposphere. On average, the correction bias was around 6.5 ppb at an altitude of 2 km, and negligible at cruising flight level. Observations from 103 long-distance flights are presented that span a large part of the northern hemispheric upper troposphere and lowermost stratosphere (UT/LMS), with occasional crossing of the tropics on flights to southern Africa. These accurate data mark the largest UT/LMS in-situ CH4 dataset worldwide. An example of a tracer-tracer correlation study with ozone is given, highlighting the possibility for accurate cross-tropopause transport analyses.
Retrieval of aerosol backscatter, extinction, and lidar ratio from Raman lidar with optimal estimation
Authors: Povey A. C. , Grainger R. G. , Peters D. M. , Agnew J. L.
Published: March 2014

Abstract. Optimal estimation retrieval is a form of nonlinear regression which determines the most probable circumstances that produced a given observation, weighted against any prior knowledge of the system. This paper applies the technique to the estimation of aerosol backscatter and extinction (or lidar ratio) from two-channel Raman lidar observations. It produces results from simulated and real data consistent with existing Raman lidar analyses and additionally returns a more rigorous estimate of its uncertainties while automatically selecting an appropriate resolution without the imposition of artificial constraints. Backscatter is retrieved at the instrument's native resolution with an uncertainty between 2 and 20%. Extinction is less well constrained, retrieved at a resolution of 0.1–1 km depending on the quality of the data. The uncertainty in extinction is > 15%, in part due to the consideration of short 1 min integrations, but is comparable to fair estimates of the error when using the standard Raman lidar technique. The retrieval is then applied to several hours of observation on 19 April 2010 of ash from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption. A depolarising ash layer is found with a lidar ratio of 20–30 sr, much lower values than observed by previous studies. This potentially indicates a growth of the particles after 12–24 h within the planetary boundary layer. A lower concentration of ash within a residual layer exhibited a backscatter of 10 Mm−1 sr−1 and lidar ratio of 40 sr.
What is the benefit of ceilometers for aerosol remote sensing? An answer from EARLINET
Authors: Wiegner M. , Madonna F. , Binietoglou I. , Forkel R. , Gasteiger J. , Geiß A. , Pappalardo G. , Schäfer K. , Thomas W.
Published: March 2014

Abstract. With the establishment of ceilometer networks by national weather services a discussion commenced to which extent these simple backscatter lidars can be used for aerosol research. Though primarily designed for the detection of clouds it was shown that at least observations of the vertical structure of the boundary layer might be possible. However, an assessment of the potential of ceilometers for the quantitative retrieval of aerosol properties is still missing. In this paper we discuss different retrieval methods to derive the aerosol backscatter coefficient βp with special focus on the calibration of the ceilometers. Different options based on forward and backward integration methods are compared with respect to their accuracy and applicability. It is shown, that advanced lidar systems as being operated in the framework of EARLINET are excellent tools for the calibration, so that aerosol retrievals based on forward integration can readily be implemented. Furthermore, we discuss uncertainties introduced by incomplete overlap, the unknown lidar ratio, and water vapor absorption. The latter is relevant for the very large number of ceilometers operating in the spectral range around λ = 905 nm. Nevertheless, the retrieval of βp with an relative error in the order of 10% seems feasible, so ceilometer networks can provide useful information to fill the spatial gaps between sophisticated lidar systems. As a consequence several international projects are underway to harmonize data sets from different ceilometer and lidar networks for the sake of providing near real time information for weather prediction and air quality issues.
Physiological effects of environmental acidification in the deep-sea urchin Strongylocentrotus fragilis
Authors: Taylor J. R. , Lovera C. , Whaling P. J. , Buck K. R. , Pane E. F. , Barry J. P.
Published: March 2014

Abstract. Anthropogenic CO2 is now reaching depths over 1000 m in the Eastern Pacific, overlapping the Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ). Deep-sea animals are suspected to be especially sensitive to environmental acidification associated with global climate change. We have investigated the effects of elevated pCO2 and variable O2 on the deep-sea urchin Strongylocentrotus fragilis, a species whose range of 200–1200 m depth includes the OMZ and spans a pCO2 range of approx. 600–1200 μatm (approx. pH 7.6 to 7.8). Individuals were evaluated during two exposure experiments (1-month and 4 month) at control and three levels of elevated pCO2 at in situ O2 levels of approx. 10% air saturation. A treatment of control pCO2 at 100% air saturation was also included in experiment two. During the first experiment, perivisceral coelomic fluid (PCF) acid-base balance was investigated during a one-month exposure; results show S. fragilis has limited ability to compensate for the respiratory acidosis brought on by elevated pCO2, due in part to low non-bicarbonate PCF buffering capacity. During the second experiment, individuals were separated into fed and fasted experimental groups, and longer-term effects of elevated pCO2 and variable O2 on righting time, feeding, growth, and gonadosomatic index (GSI) were investigated for both groups. Results suggest that the acidosis found during experiment one does not directly correlate with adverse effects during exposure to realistic future pCO2 levels.
Sediment sequence and site formation processes at the Arbreda Cave, NE Iberian Peninsula, and implications on human occupation and climate change during the Last Glacial
Authors: Kehl M. , Eckmeier E. , Franz S. O. , Lehmkuhl F. , Soler J. , Soler N. , Reicherter K. , Weniger G.-C.
Published: March 2014

Abstract. The cave of Arbreda provides a detailed archaeological record of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic and is a key site for studying human occupation and cultural transitions in NE Iberia. Recently, studies of lake archives and archaeological sites presented new evidence on climate changes in NE Iberia correlating with Heinrich events. It, therefore, needs to be determined whether climate signals can be identified in the cave sequence of Arbreda, and if so, whether these signals can be correlated with stratigraphic indicators suggesting the continuity or discontinuity of human occupation. We conducted a high-resolution sedimentological and geochemical study, including micromorphological investigations, to shed light on stratigraphy, processes of sediment accumulation and post-depositional alteration in the cave. Seven major sediment units were distinguished which partly correlate with archaeological levels. The lower part of the sequence including Mousterian levels J and K consists of fluvial deposits truncated by a sharp erosional disconformity between Mousterian levels J and I. Strong enrichment with phosphorus and strontium reflect zoogenic inputs. The transition from Mousterian to Archaic Aurignacian in levels I and H, respectively, is reflected by more gradual changes in colour, grain size, and geochemical composition. However, a peak in potentially wind-blown particles (40–125 μm in diameter) reflects higher aeolian input, and banded microstructure suggests reworking of sediments at the interface. Both properties correlate with low density of finds suggesting low intensity of human occupation related to a dry spell. More arid conditions than during the Holocene are indicated for the Gravettian to Solutrean levels. These findings are in agreement with previous palaeoclimatic interpretations as based on palaeontological proxies. The detailed multi-proxy analyses of the sequence adds to our understanding on sediment accumulation and alteration in the Cave of Arbreda. The transition from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic probably includes a gap in human occupation. Assessing the significance and duration of this gap and correlating the climate signal requires three-dimensional reconstructions of find densities and more reliable geochronological control.
Implementation of a soil albedo scheme in the CABLEv1.4b land surface model and evaluation against MODIS estimates over Australia
Authors: Kala J. , Evans J. P. , Pitman A. J. , Schaaf C. B. , Decker M. , Carouge C. , Mocko D. , Sun Q.
Published: March 2014

Abstract. Land surface albedo, the fraction of incoming solar radiation reflected by the land surface, is a key component of the earth system. This study evaluates snow-free surface albedo simulations by the Community Atmosphere Biosphere Land Exchange (CABLEv1.4b) model with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) albedo. We compare results from two offline simulations over the Australian continent, one with prescribed background snow-free and vegetation-free soil albedo derived from MODIS (the control), and the other with a simple parameterisation based on soil moisture and colour. The control simulation shows that CABLE simulates albedo over Australia reasonably well, with differences with MODIS within an acceptable range. Inclusion of the parameterisation for soil albedo however introduced large errors for the near infra red albedo, especially for desert regions of central Australia. These large errors were not fully explained by errors in soil moisture or parameter uncertainties, but are similar to errors in albedo in other land surface models which use the same soil albedo scheme. Although this new parameterisation has introduced larger errors as compared to prescribing soil albedo, dynamic soil moisture-albedo feedbacks are now enabled in CABLE. Future directions for albedo parameterisations development in CABLE are discussed.
Socio-hydrologic drivers of the pendulum swing between agricultural development and environmental health: a case study from Murrumbidgee River basin, Australia
Authors: Kandasamy J. , Sounthararajah D. , Sivabalan P. , Chanan A. , Vigneswaran S. , Sivapalan M.
Published: March 2014

Abstract. This paper presents a case study centred on the Murrumbidgee River basin in eastern Australia. It illustrates the dynamics of the balance between water extraction and use for food production, and efforts to mitigate and reverse consequent degradation of the riparian environment. In particular, the paper traces the history of a pendulum swing between an exclusive focus on agricultural development and food production in the initial stages and its attendant socio-economic benefits, followed by the gradual realization of the adverse environmental impacts, subsequent efforts to mitigate these with the use of remedial measures, and ultimately concerted efforts and externally imposed solutions to restore environmental health and ecosystem services. The 100-year history of development within the Murrumbidgee is divided into four eras, each underpinned by the dominance of different values and norms and turning points characterized by their changes. The various stages of development can be characterized by the dominance, in turn, of infrastructure systems, policy frameworks, economic instruments, and technological solutions. The paper argues that, to avoid these costly pendulum swings, management needs to be underpinned by long-term coupled socio-hydrologic system models that explicitly include the two-way coupling between human and hydrological systems, including the slow evolution of human values and norms relating to water and the environment. Such coupled human–water system models can provide insights into dominant controls of the trajectory of their co-evolution in a given system, and can also be used to interpret patterns of co-evolution of such coupled systems in different places across gradients of climatic, socio-economic and socio-cultural conditions, and in this way to help develop generalizable understanding.
Logit-normal mixed model for Indian Monsoon rainfall extremes
Authors: Dietz L. R. , Chatterjee S.
Published: March 2014

Abstract. Describing the nature and variability of Indian monsoon rainfall extremes is a topic of much debate in the current literature. We suggest the use of a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM), specifically, the logit-normal mixed model, to describe the underlying structure of this complex climatic event. Several GLMM algorithms are described and simulations are performed to vet these algorithms before applying them to the Indian precipitation data procured from the National Climatic Data Center. The logit-normal model was applied with fixed covariates of latitude, longitude, elevation, daily minimum and maximum temperatures with a random intercept by weather station. In general, the estimation methods concurred in their suggestion of a relationship between the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and extreme rainfall variability estimates. This work provides a valuable starting point for extending GLMM to incorporate the intricate dependencies in extreme climate events.
Variability of water mass properties in the Strait of Sicily in summer period of 1998–2013
Authors: Bonanno A. , Placenti F. , Basilone G. , Mifsud R. , Genovese S. , Patti B. , Di Bitetto M. , Aronica S. , Barra M. , Giacalone G. , Ferreri R. , Fontana I. , Buscaino G. , Tranchida G. , Quinci E. M. , Mazzola S.
Published: March 2014

Abstract. The Strait of Sicily plays a crucial role in determining the water mass exchanges and related properties between western and eastern Mediterranean. The presence of sills to the east and west of the Strait of Sicily and the complex seabed topography modulate the thermohaline circulation of the Mediterranean basin. An anti-estuarine circulation is mainly characterized, from a dynamic point of view, by a two-layer system: a surface layer composed of Atlantic Water (AW) flowing eastward, essentially dominated by mesoscale processes, and a subsurface layer composed of Levantine Intermediate Water (LIW) flowing in the opposite direction; the topography appears to play an important role. Furthermore, there are transition water masses with variable hydrological characteristics. The dataset here studied is a time series 16 years long (1998–2013), which highlights the high horizontal and vertical interannual variability affecting the study area. Strong temperature-salinity correlations, in the intermediate layer, for specific time intervals, could be linked to the reversal of sub-surface circulation in the Central Ionian Sea. Moreover, a long-term monitoring of the hydrographic properties of water masses across this strait allow the modelers to assess the performance of hydrological models of this area.
Simulation of wind-induced snow transport and sublimation in alpine terrain using a fully coupled snowpack/atmosphere model
Authors: Vionnet V. , Martin E. , Masson V. , Guyomarc'h G. , Naaim-Bouvet F. , Prokop A. , Durand Y. , Lac C.
Published: March 2014

Abstract. In alpine regions, wind-induced snow transport strongly influences the spatio-temporal evolution of the snow cover throughout the winter season. To gain understanding on the complex processes that drive the redistribution of snow, a new numerical model is developed. It directly couples the detailed snowpack model Crocus with the atmospheric model Meso-NH. Meso-NH/Crocus simulates snow transport in saltation and in turbulent suspension and includes the sublimation of suspended snow particles. The coupled model is evaluated against data collected around the experimental site of Col du Lac Blanc (2720 m a.s.l., French Alps). First, 1-D simulations show that a detailed representation of the first metres of the atmosphere is required to reproduce strong gradients of blowing snow concentration and compute mass exchange between the snowpack and the atmosphere. Secondly, 3-D simulations of a blowing snow event without concurrent snowfall have been carried out. Results show that the model captures the main structures of atmospheric flow in alpine terrain. However, at 50 m grid spacing, the model reproduces only the patterns of snow erosion and deposition at the ridge scale and misses smaller scale patterns observed by terrestrial laser scanning. When activated, the sublimation of suspended snow particles causes a reduction of deposited snow mass of 5.3% over the calculation domain. Total sublimation (surface + blowing snow) is three times higher than surface sublimation in a simulation neglecting blowing snow sublimation.
Effects of Hydrostatic Pressure on Biosynthetic Activity during Chondrogenic Differentiation of MSCs in Hybrid Scaffolds
Authors: Karkhaneh Akbar , Naghizadeh Ziba , Shokrgozar Mohammad Ali , Bonakdar Shahin , Solouk Atefeh , Haghighipour Nooshin
Published: March 2014

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of hydrostatic pressure (HP) on the biochemical properties and gene expression of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) on scaffolds for cartilage tissue engineering composed of poly(caprolactone) (PCL) poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) gelatin (GEL) semi interpenetrating polymer network (semi-IPN). The MSCs were cultured on PCL-PVA-GEL semi-IPN scaffolds in two groups (A and B) for 7 and 21 days, respectively, and then loaded with hydrostatic pressure (5 MPa, 0.5 Hz) for 2 h per day for the period of 7 days and compared with two non-loaded groups (C and D) as controls. DMMB and real-time PCR analysis for assaying cartilage-specific extracellular matrix (ECM) gene markers were carried out. According to the results, there were no significant differences in GAG amounts between the loaded and non-loaded constructs were observed after 14 days. However, significant and considerable increases in the expression amount of type II collagen mRNA levels in group A (from 2.43 × 10−4 ± 5.32 × 10−5 to 2.09 × 10−3 ± 1.07 × 10−4 time), and in group B (from 3.04 × 10−4 ± 4.31 × 10−5 to 2.08 × 10−3 ± 1.59 × 10−4 time) in comparison with non-loaded groups (C and D) were observed, respectively. Results showed the beneficial role of hydrostatic pressure on the increase of type II collagen mRNA levels in articular cartilage tissue engineering.
Influences of Artificial Heart-Lung Machine Operation on the Binding Sites of Albumin: Possibility of an Effective Administration Plan
Authors: Totoribe Kazuhiro , Takamura Norito , Ogata Kenji , Tokunaga Jin , Kawai Keiichi , Nakamura Kunihide , Ieiri Ichiro , Higuchi Shun
Published: March 2014

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of changes in the human serum albumin (HSA) and free fatty acid (FFA) on alteration of the binding abilities of sites I and II after the operation of an artificial heart-lung machine.

Methods

The binding abilities of phenytoin (site I) and diazepam (site II) to patients’ sera collected before and after the operation of an artificial heart-lung machine and pseudopatient serum samples were examined by ultra-filtration.

Results

The binding ability of site I markedly decreased after the operation of an artificial heart-lung machine in all patients, and the binding ability of site II unexpectedly increased in some patients. The variation in pseudopatient serum was similar to that in the patient sera.

Conclusions

The difference in the binding ability between sites I and II was due to that the fact that the binding ability of site I is more strongly influenced by HSA level reduction than by [FFA]/[HSA] reduction, whereas the binding ability of site II is more strongly influenced by [FFA]/[HSA] reduction than by HSA level reduction in some patients. Therefore, it may be possible to predict the binding ability of site I by monitoring the HSA level without directly monitoring the free phenytoin fraction (%).
Virtual Heritage: Researching and Visualizing the Past in 3D
Authors: Sanders Donald H.
Published: March 2014

The approaches and technologies of virtual heritage provide archaeologists, researchers, and students with the ability to “see” and understand the past interactively and in 3D, just as the past happened. The results of various projects underscore the new insights into the past that inevitably result from virtual reality re-creations of ancient sites, buildings, and artifacts. Interactive 3D virtual worlds offer many advantages over traditional 2D-based media. By collecting, integrating, and visualizing field data digitally, in 3D, and in a single software toolkit, excavations can participate in the coming paradigm shift in archaeology. This change in how the discipline works is exemplified by REVEAL, a new software system that is already having an impact on dozens of excavations around the world.
Synthesis and Pharmacological Evaluation of Novel Unsubstituted Indole-Anthraquinone Carboxamide Derivatives as Potent Antihyperlipidemic Agents
Authors: Al-Najdawi Manal , Hiari Yusuf , Qirim Tariq , Shattat Ghassan , Al-Zweri Mohammad , Sheikha Ghassan Abu
Published: March 2014

Five novel derivatives of N-(9,10-dihydro-9,10-dioxoanthracenyl)-1H-indole-2-carboxamide were synthesized and their lipid-lowering effects studied in hyperlipidemic rats. Fusion of the anthraquinone derivatives at high temperature with 5-indole-2-carbonyl chloride, followed by recrystallization from chloroform=methanol gave the desired compounds in excellent yields. Compounds 1 to 5 at a non-toxic dose (1 ml of 57 mM solutions) and bezafibrate as positive control were administered to rats that were hyperlipidemic due to treatment with Triton WR-1339. A decrease in the plasma levels of triglyceride (TG) and low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) and an increase in the plasma level of high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) were observed with compounds 1, 3, 4, and 5. Compounds 1, 4, and 5 significantly reduced total cholesterol (TC) levels as well. These compounds may provide agents for targeting dyslipidemia and cardiovascular disease.