bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Lipid Droplets andMycobacterium lepraeInfection
Authors: Elamin Ayssar A. , Stehr Matthias , Singh Mahavir
Published: November 2012

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease and is a major source of morbidity in developing countries. Leprosy is caused by the obligate intracellular bacteriumMycobacterium leprae, which infects as primary target Schwann cells. Lepromatous leprosy exhibits multiple lesions of the skin, eyes, nerves, and lymph nodes. The sites of infection are characterized by the presence of foamy macrophages, fully packed with lipid droplets (LDs), which are induced byM. leprae. In the last years, it has become evident thatM. tuberculosisimports lipids from foamy macrophages and is dependent on fatty acids for growth in infected macrophages.M. lepraeseems to have similar mechanisms for scavenging lipids from the host. But due to the inability to cultureM. lepraeon laboratory media, research progresses only slowly. However, in the last years, substantial progress has been made in the field of lipid metabolism inM. leprae. Herein, we will present and summarize the lipid droplets formation and the metabolism of lipids duringM. lepraeinfection.
Contribution of 18F-Fluoro-ethyl-tyrosine Positron Emission Tomography to Target Volume Delineation in Stereotactic Radiotherapy of Malignant Cranial Base Tumours: First Clinical Experience
Authors: Graf Reinhold , Plotkin Michail , Nyuyki Fonyuy , Wust Peter , Wurm Reinhard , Budach Volker , Brenner Winfried , Fahdt Daniel
Published: November 2012

Increased amino acid uptake has been demonstrated in intracerebral tumours and head and neck carcinomas of squamous cell origin. We investigated the potential impact of using 18F-fluoro-ethyl-tyrosine (18F-FET)-PET/CT in addition to conventional imaging for gross tumour volume (GTV) delineation in stereotactic radiotherapy of skull base tumours. The study population consisted of 14 consecutive patients with cranial base tumours (10 with squamous cell histology, 4 others). All patients underwent a FET-PET/CT examination in addition to contrast-enhanced CT and 11 patients underwent MRI. All tumours and histologic types showed increased FET uptake. The GTV was defined by all voxels showing hyperintensity in MRI or CT (GTVMRI/CT) or enhancement in PET (GTVPET), forming a GTVcomposite that was used for the initial treatment fields. An additional volume of infiltrative growth outside the GTVMRI/CT of about 1.0 ± 2 cm3 (5% of the conventional volume) was demonstrated by FET-PET only (GTVPETplus) with significant enlargement (>10% of GTVMRI/CT) in three patients. From existing data, we found correlation between cellular density and the standardized uptake value (SUV) of FET. We were able to substantially reduce the volume of escalated radiation dose (GTVboost) by 11 ± 2 cm3 (24%) of the conventional volume.
A Review of Machine-Vision-Based Analysis of Wireless Capsule Endoscopy Video
Authors: Chen Yingju , Lee Jeongkyu
Published: November 2012

Wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE) enables a physician to diagnose a patient's digestive system without surgical procedures. However, it takes 1-2 hours for a gastroenterologist to examine the video. To speed up the review process, a number of analysis techniques based on machine vision have been proposed by computer science researchers. In order to train a machine to understand the semantics of an image, the image contents need to be translated into numerical form first. The numerical form of the image is known as image abstraction. The process of selecting relevant image features is often determined by the modality of medical images and the nature of the diagnoses. For example, there are radiographic projection-based images (e.g., X-rays and PET scans), tomography-based images (e.g., MRT and CT scans), and photography-based images (e.g., endoscopy, dermatology, and microscopic histology). Each modality imposes unique image-dependent restrictions for automatic and medically meaningful image abstraction processes. In this paper, we review the current development of machine-vision-based analysis of WCE video, focusing on the research that identifies specific gastrointestinal (GI) pathology and methods of shot boundary detection.
Ion Flux Dependent and Independent Functions of Ion Channels in the Vertebrate Heart: Lessons Learned from Zebrafish
Authors: Keßler Mirjam , Just Steffen , Rottbauer Wolfgang
Published: November 2012

Ion channels orchestrate directed flux of ions through membranes and are essential for a wide range of physiological processes including depolarization and repolarization of biomechanical activity of cells. Besides their electrophysiological functions in the heart, recent findings have demonstrated that ion channels also feature ion flux independent functions during heart development and morphogenesis. The zebrafish is a well-established animal model to decipher the genetics of cardiovascular development and disease of vertebrates. In large scale forward genetics screens, hundreds of mutant lines have been isolated with defects in cardiovascular structure and function. Detailed phenotyping of these lines and identification of the causative genetic defects revealed new insights into ion flux dependent and independent functions of various cardiac ion channels.
Mixed Convection Flow over an Unsteady Stretching Surface in a Porous Medium with Heat Source
Authors: Imran Syed Muhammad , Asghar Saleem , Mushtaq Muhammad
Published: November 2012

This paper deals with the analysis of an unsteady mixed convection flow of a fluid saturated porous medium adjacent to heated/cooled semi‐infinite stretching vertical sheet in the presence of heat source. The unsteadiness in the flow is caused by continuous stretching of the sheet and continuous increase in the surface temperature. We present the analytical and numerical solutions of the problem. The effects of emerging parameters on field quantities are examined and discussed.
Empyema and Respiratory Failure Secondary to Nephropleural Fistula Caused by Chronic Urinary Tract Infection: A Case Report
Authors: Jones G. H. , Kalaher H. R. , Misra N. , Curtis J. , Parker R. J.
Published: November 2012

We report a case of nephropleural fistula causing empyema and respiratory failure in a 68-year-old gentleman with a long history of urological problems including recurrent nephrolithiasis and urinary tract infections. He was admitted with sepsis, a productive cough, pyuria, and reduced breath sounds over the left hemithorax. Radiological imaging revealed a fistulous connection between a left-sided perinephric abscess and the pleural space. He was commenced on broad spectrum intravenous antibiotics but developed progressive respiratory failure requiring intensive care admission. Urinary and pleural aspirates cultured facultative anaerobic pathogens with identical resistance patterns. Drainage of thoracic and perinephric collections was carried out, allowing him to be extubated after 24 hours and discharged home after 18 days on an extended course of oral antibiotics. Left nephrectomy is now planned after a period of convalescence. Empyema developing in patients with known urolithiasis should alert the treating physician to the possibility that a pathological communication has formed especially if typical urinary tract pathogens are cultured from respiratory sampling.
Fetal Arthrogryposis Secondary to a Giant Maternal Uterine Leiomyoma
Authors: Vila-Vives José María , Hidalgo-Mora Juan José , Soler Inmaculada , Rubio Juan , Quiroga Ramiro , Perales Alfredo
Published: November 2012

Arthrogryposis multiplex congenital is a rare condition defined as contractures in multiple joints at birth due to disorders starting in fetal life. Its etiology is associated with many different conditions and in many instances remains unknown. The final common pathway to all of them is decreased fetal movement (fetal akinesia) due to an abnormal intrauterine environment. Causes of decreased fetal movements may be neuropathic abnormalities, abnormalities of connective tissue or muscle, intrauterine vascular compromise, maternal diseases, and space limitations within the uterus. When the cause of arthrogryposis is space limitations in uterus, the most common etiology is oligohydramnios. The same can result from intrauterine tumours as fibroids, although to our knowledge there are only two papers reporting cases of fetal deformities related to uterine leiomyomas. We describe a well-documented exceptional case of arthrogryposis associated with the presence of a large uterine fibroid. It could illustrate the importance of a careful and appropriate assessment of uterine fibroids before and in the course of a pregnancy considering that they can cause both serious maternal and fetal complications.
Oleic Acid Induces Lung Injury in Mice through Activation of the ERK Pathway
Authors: Gonçalves-de-Albuquerque Cassiano Felippe , Silva Adriana Ribeiro , Burth Patrícia , de Moraes Isabel Matos Medeiros , Oliveira Flora Magno de Jesus , Younes-Ibrahim Mauricio , dos Santos Maria da Conceição Batista , D’Ávila Heloísa , Bozza Patrícia Torres , Faria Neto Hugo Caire de Castro , Castro Faria Mauro Velho de
Published: November 2012

Oleic acid (OA) can induce acute lung injury in experimental models. In the present work, we used intratracheal OA injection to show augmented oedema formation, cell migration and activation, lipid mediator, and cytokine productions in the bronchoalveolar fluids of Swiss Webster mice. We also demonstrated that OA-induced pulmonary injury is dependent on ERK1/2 activation, since U0126, an inhibitor of ERK1/2 phosphorylation, blocked neutrophil migration, oedema, and lipid body formation as well as IL-6, but not IL-1βproduction. Using a mice strain carrying a null mutation for the TLR4 receptor, we proved that increased inflammatory parameters after OA challenges were not due to the activation of the TLR4 receptor. With OA being a Na/K-ATPase inhibitor, we suggest the possible involvement of this enzyme as an OA target triggering lung inflammation.
Sinusitis: A Rare Cause for Galactorrhoea
Authors: Bennett W. O. , Kennedy J. R. , Reddy V. M. , Dyer R. , Hickey S. A.
Published: November 2012

A 32-year-old woman presented to the endocrinology clinic with recent onset galactorrhoea. Investigations revealed raised prolactin levels. An MRI scan demonstrated a normal pituitary gland, and an incidental finding of sphenoid sinusitis with expansion of the sphenoid sinus was thought to be due to a mucocele. It is postulated that either the direct local pressure by the mucocele or localised inflammation secondary to sinusitis might cause hyperprolactinaemia. The patient underwent endoscopic surgery to drain the mucocele, after which her galactorrhoea resolved. A review of the literature reveals only one previously documented case of sinusitis causing hyperprolactinaemia and galactorrhoea.
miRNA-34b Inhibits Prostate Cancer through Demethylation, Active Chromatin Modifications, and AKT Pathways
Authors: Majid Shahana , Dar Altaf A. , Saini Sharanjot , Shahryari Varahram , Arora Sumit , Zaman Mohd Saif , Chang Inik , Yamamura Soichiro , Tanaka Yuichiro , Chiyomaru Takeshi , Deng Guoren , Dahiya Rajvir
Published: November 2012

Purpose: miRNAs can act as oncomirs or tumor-suppressor miRs in cancer. This study was undertaken to investigate the status and role of miR-34b in prostate cancer.

Experimental Design: Profiling of miR-34b was carried out in human prostate cancer cell lines and clinical samples by quantitative real-time PCR and in situ hybridization. Statistical analyses were done to assess diagnostic/prognostic potential. Biological significance was elucidated by carrying out a series of experiments in vitro and in vivo.

Results: We report that miR-34b is silenced in human prostate cancer and the mechanism is through CpG hypermethylation. miR-34b directly targeted methyltransferases and deacetylases resulting in a positive feedback loop inducing partial demethylation and active chromatin modifications. miR-34b expression could predict overall and recurrence-free survival such that patients with high miR-34b levels had longer survival. Functionally, miR-34b inhibited cell proliferation, colony formation, migration/invasion, and triggered G0/G1 cell-cycle arrest and apoptosis by directly targeting the Akt and its downstream proliferative genes. miR-34b caused a decline in the mesenchymal markers vimentin, ZO1, N-cadherin, and Snail with an increase in E-cadherin expression, thus inhibiting epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. Finally we showed the antitumor effect of miR-34b in vivo. MiR-34b caused a dramatic decrease in tumor growth in nude mice compared with cont-miR.

Conclusion: These findings offer new insight into the role of miR-34b in the inhibition of prostate cancer through demethylation, active chromatin modification, and Akt pathways and may provide a rationale for the development of new strategies targeting epigenetic regulation of miRNAs for the treatment of prostate cancer. Clin Cancer Res; 19(1); 73–84. ©2012 AACR.
Impact of a High Loading Dose of Atorvastatin on Contrast-Induced Acute Kidney Injury
Authors: Quintavalle Cristina , Fiore Danilo , De Micco Francesca , Visconti Gabriella , Focaccio Amelia , Golia Bruno , Ricciardelli Bruno , Donnarumma Elvira , Bianco Antonio , Zabatta Maria Assunta , Troncone Giancarlo , Colombo Antonio , Briguori Carlo , Condorelli Gerolama
Published: November 2012

Background—

The role of statins in the prevention of contrast-induced acute kidney injury (CIAKI) is controversial.

Methods and Results—

First, we investigated the in vivo effects of atorvastatin on CIAKI. Patients with chronic kidney disease enrolled in the Novel Approaches for Preventing or Limiting Events (NAPLES) II trial were randomly assigned to (1) the atorvastatin group (80 mg within 24 hours before contrast media [CM] exposure; n=202) or (2) the control group (n=208). All patients received a high dose of
N
-acetylcysteine and sodium bicarbonate solution. Second, we investigated the in vitro effects of atorvastatin pretreatment on CM-mediated modifications of intracellular pathways leading to apoptosis or survival in renal tubular cells. CIAKI (ie, an increase >10% of serum cystatin C concentration within 24 hours after CM exposure) occurred in 9 of 202 patients in the atorvastatin group (4.5%) and in 37 of 208 patients in the control group (17.8%) (
P
=0.005; odds ratio=0.22; 95% confidence interval, 0.07–0.69). CIAKI rate was lower in the atorvastatin group in both diabetics and nondiabetics and in patients with moderate chronic kidney disease (estimated glomerular filtration rate, 31–60 mL/min per 1.73 m
2
). In the in vitro model, pretreatment with atorvastatin (1) prevented CM-induced renal cell apoptosis by reducing stress kinases activation and (2) restored the survival signals (mediated by Akt and ERK pathways).

Conclusions—

A single high loading dose of atorvastatin administered within 24 hours before CM exposure is effective in reducing the rate of CIAKI. This beneficial effect is observed only in patients at low to medium risk.
Morphological and Syntactic Case in Statistical Dependency Parsing
Authors: Seeker Wolfgang , Kuhn Jonas
Published: November 2012

Most morphologically rich languages with free word order use case systems to mark the grammatical function of nominal elements, especially for the core argument functions of a verb. The standard pipeline approach in syntactic dependency parsing assumes a complete disambiguation of morphological (case) information prior to automatic syntactic analysis. Parsing experiments on Czech, German, and Hungarian show that this approach is susceptible to propagating morphological annotation errors when parsing languages displaying syncretism in their morphological case paradigms. We develop a different architecture where we use case as a possibly underspecified filtering device restricting the options for syntactic analysis. Carefully designed morpho-syntactic constraints can delimit the search space of a statistical dependency parser and exclude solutions that would violate the restrictions overtly marked in the morphology of the words in a given sentence. The constrained system outperforms a state-of-the-art data-driven pipeline architecture, as we show experimentally, and, in addition, the parser output comes with guarantees about local and global morpho-syntactic wellformedness, which can be useful for downstream applications.
Parsing Models for Identifying Multiword Expressions
Authors: Green Spence , de Marneffe Marie-Catherine , Manning Christopher D.
Published: November 2012

Multiword expressions lie at the syntax/semantics interface and have motivated alternative theories of syntax like Construction Grammar. Until now, however, syntactic analysis and multiword expression identification have been modeled separately in natural language processing. We develop two structured prediction models for joint parsing and multiword expression identification. The first is based on context-free grammars and the second uses tree substitution grammars, a formalism that can store larger syntactic fragments. Our experiments show that both models can identify multiword expressions with much higher accuracy than a state-of-the-art system based on word co-occurrence statistics.

We experiment with Arabic and French, which both have pervasive multiword expressions. Relative to English, they also have richer morphology, which induces lexical sparsity in finite corpora. To combat this sparsity, we develop a simple factored lexical representation for the context-free parsing model. Morphological analyses are automatically transformed into rich feature tags that are scored jointly with lexical items. This technique, which we call a factored lexicon, improves both standard parsing and multiword expression identification accuracy.
Stochastic Optimal Control as a Theory of Brain-Machine Interface Operation
Authors: Lagang Manuel , Srinivasan Lakshminarayan
Published: November 2012

The closed-loop operation of brain-machine interfaces (BMI) provides a framework to study the mechanisms behind neural control through a restricted output channel, with emerging clinical applications to stroke, degenerative disease, and trauma. Despite significant empirically driven improvements in closed-loop BMI systems, a fundamental, experimentally validated theory of closed-loop BMI operation is lacking. Here we propose a compact model based on stochastic optimal control to describe the brain in skillfully operating canonical decoding algorithms. The model produces goal-directed BMI movements with sensory feedback and intrinsically noisy neural output signals. Various experimentally validated phenomena emerge naturally from this model, including performance deterioration with bin width, compensation of biased decoders, and shifts in tuning curves between arm control and BMI control.

Analysis of the model provides insight into possible mechanisms underlying these behaviors, with testable predictions. Spike binning may erode performance in part from intrinsic control-dependent constraints, regardless of decoding accuracy. In compensating decoder bias, the brain may incur an energetic cost associated with action potential production. Tuning curve shifts, seen after the mastery of a BMI-based skill, may reflect the brain's implementation of a new closed-loop control policy. The direction and magnitude of tuning curve shifts may be altered by decoder structure, ensemble size, and the costs of closed-loop control. Looking forward, the model provides a framework for the design and simulated testing of an emerging class of BMI algorithms that seek to directly exploit the presence of a human in the loop.
A Spike-Timing-Based Integrated Model for Pattern Recognition
Authors: Hu Jun , Tang Huajin , Tan K. C. , Li Haizhou , Shi Luping
Published: November 2012

During the past few decades, remarkable progress has been made in solving pattern recognition problems using networks of spiking neurons. However, the issue of pattern recognition involving computational process from sensory encoding to synaptic learning remains underexplored, as most existing models or algorithms target only part of the computational process. Furthermore, many learning algorithms proposed in the literature neglect or pay little attention to sensory information encoding, which makes them incompatible with neural-realistic sensory signals encoded from real-world stimuli. By treating sensory coding and learning as a systematic process, we attempt to build an integrated model based on spiking neural networks (SNNs), which performs sensory neural encoding and supervised learning with precisely timed sequences of spikes. With emerging evidence of precise spike-timing neural activities, the view that information is represented by explicit firing times of action potentials rather than mean firing rates has been receiving increasing attention. The external sensory stimulation is first converted into spatiotemporal patterns using a latency-phase encoding method and subsequently transmitted to the consecutive network for learning. Spiking neurons are trained to reproduce target signals encoded with precisely timed spikes. We show that when a supervised spike-timing-based learning is used, different spatiotemporal patterns are recognized by different spike patterns with a high time precision in milliseconds.
Impact of Correlated Neural Activity on Decision-Making Performance
Authors: Cain Nicholas , Shea-Brown Eric
Published: November 2012

Stimulus from the environment that guides behavior and informs decisions is encoded in the firing rates of neural populations. Neurons in the populations, however, do not spike independently: spike events are correlated from cell to cell. To what degree does this apparent redundancy have an impact on the accuracy with which decisions can be made and the computations required to optimally decide? We explore these questions for two illustrative models of correlation among cells. Each model is statistically identical at the level of pairwise correlations but differs in higher-order statistics that describe the simultaneous activity of larger cell groups. We find that the presence of correlations can diminish the performance attained by an ideal decision maker to either a small or large extent, depending on the nature of the higher-order correlations. Moreover, although this optimal performance can in some cases be obtained using the standard integration-to-bound operation, in others it requires a nonlinear computation on incoming spikes. Overall, we conclude that a given level of pairwise correlations, even when restricted to identical neural populations, may not always indicate redundancies that diminish decision-making performance.
Arctic Cloud Characteristics as Derived from MODIS, CALIPSO, and CloudSat
Authors: Chan Mark Aaron , Comiso Josefino C.
Published: November 2012

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Cloud–Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP), and CloudSat Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) set of sensors, all in the Afternoon Constellation (A-Train), has been regarded as among the most powerful tools for characterizing the cloud cover. While providing good complementary information, the authors also observed that, at least for the Arctic region, the different sensors provide significantly different statistics about cloud cover characteristics. Data in 2007 and 2010 were analyzed, and the annual averages of cloud cover in the Arctic region were found to be 66.8%, 78.4%, and 63.3% as derived from MODIS, CALIOP, and CPR, respectively. A large disagreement between MODIS and CALIOP over sea ice and Greenland is observed, with a cloud percentage difference of 30.9% and 31.5%, respectively. In the entire Arctic, the average disagreement between MODIS and CALIOP increased from 13.1% during daytime to 26.7% during nighttime. Furthermore, the MODIS cloud mask accuracy has a high seasonal dependence, in that MODIS–CALIOP disagreement is the lowest during summertime at 10.7% and worst during winter at 28.0%. During nighttime the magnitude of the bias is higher because cloud detection is limited to the use of infrared bands. The clouds not detected by MODIS are typically low-level (top height <2 km) and high-level clouds (top height >6 km) and, especially, those that are geometrically thin (<2 km). Geometrically thin clouds (<2 km) accounted for about 95.5% of all clouds that CPR misses. As reported in a similar study, very low and thin clouds (<0.3 km) over sea ice that are detected by MODIS are sometimes not observed by CPR and misclassified by CALIOP.
Acts of translation: UK advice agencies and the creation of matters-of-public-concern
Authors: Mcdermont Morag
Published: November 2012

Voluntary sector advice agencies have performed an important function in providing free, accessible advice in the UK for many decades. As legal aid is slashed, and ‘austerity’ leaves everyday life for many ever more precarious, their role has never been more essential. Advice agencies provide a dynamic and increasingly significant transition point where the rights, responsibilities and grievances of the individual are brought into dialogue with formal legal structures. Drawing on ideas from the ‘sociology of translation’, this paper sets out to consider the multiple, complex roles these organizations play. They are involved not simply in the delivery of advice to individuals, but in a collective concern that translates personal grievances into matters-of- public-concern. The paper concludes by considering the implications for an emerging research agenda that considers advice organizations as legal actors in a fragmenting world.
Measuring Uncertainty in International Relations: Heteroskedastic Strategic Models
Authors: Bas Muhammet A.
Published: November 2012

Actor-level variations in the amounts of uncertainty have been widely ignored in the growing literature on statistical models of strategic interaction in international relations. In this article, I provide a tool for testing theories about the level of uncertainty in strategic interactions. I show that ignoring potential variations in levels of uncertainty across different cases can be a source of bias for empirical analyses. I propose a method to incorporate this form of heteroskedasticity into existing estimators and show that this method can improve inferences. With a series of Monte Carlo experiments, I evaluate the magnitude and the severity of the bias and inconsistency in estimators that ignore heteroskedasticity. More importantly, the tools developed in this article have many interesting substantive application areas. Examples considered include measuring speculators’ suboptimal behavior tendencies in international currency crises, and capturing varying levels of signaling and Bayesian updating behavior in the recent strategic models of signaling.
Issue Intractability and the Persistence of International Rivalry
Authors: Dreyer David R.
Published: November 2012

Rivalries are likely to persist as long as contentious issues remain unresolved. Due to differing issue characteristics, some issues may be more intractable than others and therefore especially likely to prolong rivalry. In this study, I argue that rivalries rooted in territorial issues tend to be enduring due to broad-bases of domestic support for continuing to pursue territorial claims and loose linkages between territorial issues and particular political leaders, resulting in the persistence of territorial conflict over time despite changes of leadership. Alternatively, ideological and regime-related conflicts tend to be relatively fleeting due to narrow societal salience and close connections between such issues and particular political leaders, facilitating rivalry termination through leadership change. The empirical results reveal that territorial rivalries (as well as positional rivalries concerning influence/prestige) tend to be more enduring than rivalries rooted in ideological or regime-related conflict and that unlike territorial rivalries, ideological rivalries tend to terminate upon irregular changes of leadership.
Analysis of an ‘on–off’ regenerative electromechanical damper
Authors: Yu Changmiao , Rakheja Subhash , Wang Weihua , Wang Qingnian
Published: November 2012

The design concept of an electromechanical regenerative damper is proposed to achieve variable asymmetric damping, similar to ‘high–low’ and ‘on–off’ semi-active damping, in a passive manner, while providing the energy-harvesting potential. The proposed design consists of two overrunning clutches and a planet gear mechanism which provides a low effective inertia and transforms the bidirectional linear motion across the damper to an asymmetric unidirectional rotation of the generator. An analytical model of the proposed electromechanical regenerative damper is developed to derive its damping properties during compression and rebound in terms of the inertia and electromagnetic generator force components considering slippage of the clutches. For this purpose, the conditions for slippage of the clutches are established. The influences of the transmission system and electromagnetic circuit parameters on the damping properties are analysed under different harmonic excitations. The results showed that the proposed transmission design helps to limit the inertial damping force, and the rebound to compression damper asymmetry is directly related to the gear ratio, while slippage of the clutches yields a high–low or on–off type of damping. The on- or off-cycle duration could be easily tuned through the electromagnetic and charging circuit parameters. The vibration isolation properties of the proposed damper are subsequently investigated considering a base-excited single-degree-of-freedom system. The model is further applied to evaluate the energy-harvesting potential of the damper. The results showed that the proposed damper with slippage of the clutches offers superior tuning flexibility to achieve improved vibration isolation and an improved relative displacement performance, while the energy-harvesting potential is strongly dependent upon the armature resistance and the charging capacitor voltage, as well as the damper velocity.
Contact stress and rolling contact fatigue of indented contacts: Part II, rolling element bearing life calculation and experimental data of indent geometries
Authors: Biboulet N , Houpert L , Lubrecht AA , Hager C
Published: November 2012

This article presents a brief overview of how the stress risk integrals of indented contacts are combined to calculate a rolling element bearing life and some experimental data concerning measured indentation. The possibility of predicting surface indentation and bearing life from normalized contamination standards is discussed.
Improving accuracy for cancer classification with a new algorithm for genes selection
Authors: Zhang Hongyan , Wang Haiyan , Dai Zhijun , Chen Ming-shun , Yuan Zheming
Published: November 2012

Background

Even though the classification of cancer tissue samples based on gene expression data has advanced considerably in recent years, it faces great challenges to improve accuracy. One of the challenges is to establish an effective method that can select a parsimonious set of relevant genes. So far, most methods for gene selection in literature focus on screening individual or pairs of genes without considering the possible interactions among genes. Here we introduce a new computational method named the Binary Matrix Shuffling Filter (BMSF). It not only overcomes the difficulty associated with the search schemes of traditional wrapper methods and overfitting problem in large dimensional search space but also takes potential gene interactions into account during gene selection. This method, coupled with Support Vector Machine (SVM) for implementation, often selects very small number of genes for easy model interpretability.

Results

We applied our method to 9 two-class gene expression datasets involving human cancers. During the gene selection process, the set of genes to be kept in the model was recursively refined and repeatedly updated according to the effect of a given gene on the contributions of other genes in reference to their usefulness in cancer classification. The small number of informative genes selected from each dataset leads to significantly improved leave-one-out (LOOCV) classification accuracy across all 9 datasets for multiple classifiers. Our method also exhibits broad generalization in the genes selected since multiple commonly used classifiers achieved either equivalent or much higher LOOCV accuracy than those reported in literature.

Conclusions

Evaluation of a gene’s contribution to binary cancer classification is better to be considered after adjusting for the joint effect of a large number of other genes. A computationally efficient search scheme was provided to perform effective search in the extensive feature space that includes possible interactions of many genes. Performance of the algorithm applied to 9 datasets suggests that it is possible to improve the accuracy of cancer classification by a big margin when joint effects of many genes are considered.
A method for high throughput determination of viable bacteria cell counts in 96-well plates
Authors: Hazan Ronen , Que Yok-Ai , Maura Damien , Rahme Laurence G
Published: November 2012

Background

There are several methods for quantitating bacterial cells, each with advantages and disadvantages. The most common method is bacterial plating, which has the advantage of allowing live cell assessment through colony forming unit (CFU) counts but is not well suited for high throughput screening (HTS). On the other hand, spectrophotometry is adaptable to HTS applications but does not differentiate between dead and living bacteria and has low sensitivity.

Results

Here, we report a bacterial cell counting method termed Start Growth Time (SGT) that allows rapid and serial quantification of the absolute or relative number of live cells in a bacterial culture in a high throughput manner. We combined the methodology of quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) calculations with a previously described qualitative method of bacterial growth determination to develop an improved quantitative method. We show that SGT detects only live bacteria and is sensitive enough to differentiate between 40 and 400 cells/mL. SGT is based on the re-growth time required by a growing cell culture to reach a threshold, and the notion that this time is proportional to the number of cells in the initial inoculum. We show several applications of SGT, including assessment of antibiotic effects on cell viability and determination of an antibiotic tolerant subpopulation fraction within a cell population. SGT results do not differ significantly from results obtained by CFU counts.

Conclusion

SGT is a relatively quick, highly sensitive, reproducible and non-laborious method that can be used in HTS settings to longitudinally assess live cells in bacterial cell cultures.
A case report of type VI dual left anterior descending coronary artery anomaly presenting with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction
Authors: Lee Yonggu , Lim Young-Hyo , Shin Jinho , Kim Kyung-Soo
Published: November 2012

Background

Type VI dual left anterior descending artery (LAD) is a rare coronary anomaly, the first case of which has recently been described. This is the first report of type VI dual LAD anomaly in which the patient presented with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction and percutaneous coronary intervention was performed in the anomalously originating LAD.

Case presentation

A 52-year-old man with diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia presented with chest pain without ST elevation on EKG, although the patient’s troponin I level was elevated. Coronary angiography revealed a short LAD originating from the left main coronary artery and a long LAD originating from the proximal portion of the right coronary artery (RCA). Three-dimensional reconstruction of computed tomography of images revealed that the long LAD originated from the proximal RCA and coursed between the right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT) and the aortic root before entering the mid anterior interventricular groove. The high take-off RCA originated underneath the RVOT, pointing downwards and forming an acute angle with the proximal portion of the long LAD. The anomalous long LAD displayed significant stenosis. We performed successful percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in the anomalous artery.

Conclusion

With accurate understanding of the coronary anatomy and appropriate hardware selection, successful PCI can be performed in the in the long LAD in patients with type VI dual LAD anomaly.
Acute portal vein thrombosis precipitated by indomethacin in a HCV-positive elderly patient
Authors: Mantarro Stefania , Tuccori Marco , Pasqualetti Giuseppe , Tognini Sara , Montagnani Sabrina , Monzani Fabio , Blandizzi Corrado
Published: November 2012

Background

An increased risk of venous thromboembolism has been reported in patients treated with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). We describe a case of acute portal vein thrombosis (PVT) in a hepatitis C virus (HCV)-positive elderly patient following administration of indomethacin.

Case presentation

A 79-year-old HCV-positive man was hospitalized for severe abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, 15 days after starting indomethacin for back pain. Clinical signs and imaging evaluations disclosed a picture of PVT. Indomethacin was discontinued, and the patient was started on fondaparinux and antithrombin. He was discharged 15 days later due to improvement of his clinical conditions. Thirty days later, a follow-up ultrasound did not show appreciable signs of PVT. The time elapsing between the start of analgesic therapy and PVT onset suggests a role of indomethacin as the triggering agent. Indomethacin could have precipitated PVT by a combination of at least two detrimental mechanisms: 1) direct action on liver vascular endothelium by inhibition of prostacyclin biosynthesis; 2) damage to the intestinal mucosa, followed by inflammatory and pro-coagulant activation of portal endothelium upon exposure to bacterial endotoxins.

Conclusions

This case can be of interest to physicians, who should exert caution when prescribing NSAIDs for inflammatory pain in patients with background inflammatory dysfunctions of the portal vein endothelium.
Autoantibody against transient receptor potential M1 cation channels of retinal ON bipolar cells in paraneoplastic vitelliform retinopathy
Authors: Wang Yujuan , Abu-Asab Mones S , Li Wei , Aronow Mary E , Singh Arun D , Chan Chi-Chao
Published: November 2012

Background

Paraneoplastic retinopathy is caused by the cross-reaction of neoplasm-directed autoantibodies against retinal antigens and results in retinal damage. Paraneoplastic vitelliform retinopathy, a presumed paraneoplastic retinopathy with features of atypical melanoma-associated retinopathy, has recently been reported in patients with metastatic melanoma. Ocular ultrastructure and its autoantibody localization of paraneoplastic vitelliform retinopathy are still indefinable. This is the first report of anti-transient receptor potential M1 antibody directly against human retinal bipolar dendritic tips in a melanoma patient with paraneoplastic vitelliform retinopathy.

Case presentation

We present a pair of postmortem eyes of an 80-year-old male with metastatic cutaneous melanoma, who developed paraneoplastic vitelliform retinopathy. The autopsied eyes were examined with light microscopy, immunohistochemistry, and transmission electron microscopy. Microscopically, the inner nuclear layer and outer plexiform layer were the most affected retinal structures, with local thinning. The lesions extended to the outer nuclear layer, resulting in focal retinal degeneration, edema, and atrophy. No active inflammation or melanoma cells were observed. Immunohistochemistry showed tightly compact bipolar cell nuclei (protein kinase C alpha/calbindin positive) with blur/loss of ON bipolar cell dendritic tips (transient receptor potential M1 positive) in diffusely condensed outer plexiform layer. The metastatic melanoma cells in his lung also showed immunoreactivity against transient receptor potential M1 antibody. Transmission electron microscopy illustrated degenerated inner nuclear layer with disintegration of cells and loss of cytoplasmic organelles. These cells contained many lysosomal and autophagous bodies and damaged mitochondria. Their nuclei appeared pyknotic and fragmentary. The synapses in the outer plexiform layer were extensively degenerated and replaced with empty vacuoles and disintegrated organelles.

Conclusion

This case provides a convincing histological evidence of melanoma-associated autoantibodies directly against transient receptor potential M1 channels that target the ON bipolar cell structures in the inner nuclear and outer plexiform layers in paraneoplastic vitelliform retinopathy.
Size-dependent antimicrobial properties of sugar-encapsulated gold nanoparticles synthesized by a green method
Authors: Badwaik Vivek D , Vangala Lakshmisri M , Pender Dillon S , Willis Chad B , Aguilar Zoraida P , Gonzalez Matthew S , Paripelly Rammohan , Dakshinamurthy Rajalingam
Published: November 2012

The antimicrobial properties of dextrose-encapsulated gold nanoparticles (dGNPs) with average diameters of 25, 60, and 120 nm (± 5) and synthesized by green chemistry principles were investigated against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. Studies were performed involving the effect of dGNPs on the growth, morphology, and ultrastructural properties of bacteria. dGNPs were found to have significant dose-dependent antibacterial activity which was also proportional to their size. Experiments revealed the dGNPs to be bacteriostatic as well as bactericidal. The dGNPs exhibited their bactericidal action by disrupting the bacterial cell membrane which leads to the leakage of cytoplasmic content. The overall outcome of this study suggests that green-synthesized dGNPs hold promise as a potent antibacterial agent against a wide range of disease-causing bacteria by preventing and controlling possible infections or diseases.
Study on integro-differential equation with generalized p-Laplacian operator
Authors: Wei Li , Agarwal Ravi P , Wong Patricia JY
Published: November 2012

We tackle the existence and uniqueness of the solution for a kind of integro-differential equations involving the generalized p-Laplacian operator with mixed boundary conditions. This is achieved by using some results on the ranges for maximal monotone operators and pseudo-monotone operators. The method used in this paper extends and complements some previous work.

MSC: 47H05, 47H09.
A stereoscopic video conversion scheme based on spatio-temporal analysis of MPEG videos
Authors: Lin Guo-Shiang , Huang Hsiang-Yun , Chen Wei-Chih , Yeh Cheng-Ying , Liu Kai-Che , Lie Wen-Nung
Published: November 2012

In this article, an automatic stereoscopic video conversion scheme which accepts MPEG-encoded videos as input is proposed. Our scheme is depth-based, relying on spatio-temporal analysis of the decoded video data to yield depth perception cues, such as temporal motion and spatial contrast, which reflect the relative depths between the foreground and the background areas. Our scheme is shot-adaptive, demanding that shot change detection and shot classification be performed for tuning of algorithm or parameters that are used for depth cue combination. The above-mentioned depth estimation is initially block-based, followed by a locally adaptive joint trilateral upsampling algorithm to reduce the computing load significantly. A recursive temporal filter is used to reduce the possible depth fluctuations (and also artifacts in the synthesized images) resulting from wrong depth estimations. The traditional Depth-Image-Based-Rendering algorithm is used to synthesize the left- and right-view frames for 3D display. Subjective tests show that videos converted by our scheme provide comparable perceived depth and visual quality with those converted from the depth data calculated by stereo vision techniques. Also, our scheme is shown to outperform the well-known TriDef software in terms of human’s perceived 3D depth. Based on the implementation by using “OpenMP” parallel programming model, our scheme is capable of executing in real-time on a multi-core CPU platform.
The effect of improved rural sanitation on diarrhoea and helminth infection: design of a cluster-randomized trial in Orissa, India
Authors: Clasen Thomas , Boisson Sophie , Routray Parimita , Cumming Oliver , Jenkins Marion , Ensink Jeroen H J , Bell Melissa , Freeman Matthew C , Peppin Soosai , Schmidt Wolf-Peter
Published: November 2012

Background

Infectious diseases associated with poor sanitation such as diarrhoea, intestinal worms, trachoma and lymphatic filariasis continue to cause a large disease burden in low income settings and contribute substantially to child mortality and morbidity. Obtaining health impact data for rural sanitation campaigns poses a number of methodological challenges. Here we describe the design of a village-level cluster-randomised trial in the state of Orissa, India to evaluate the impact of an ongoing rural sanitation campaign conducted under the umbrella of India’s Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC).We randomised 50 villages to the intervention and 50 villages to control. In the intervention villages the implementing non-governmental organisations conducted community mobilisation and latrine construction with subsidies given to poor families. Control villages receive no intervention. Outcome measures include (1) diarrhoea in children under 5 and in all ages, (2) soil-transmitted helminth infections, (3) anthropometric measures, (4) water quality, (5) number of insect vectors (flies, mosquitoes), (6) exposure to faecal pathogens in the environment. In addition we are conducting process documentation (latrine construction and use, intervention reach), cost and cost-effectiveness analyses, spatial analyses and qualitative research on gender and water use for sanitation.

Results

Randomisation resulted in an acceptable balance between trial arms. The sample size requirements appear to be met for the main study outcomes. Delays in intervention roll-out caused logistical problems especially for the planning of health outcome follow-up surveys. Latrine coverage at the end of the construction period (55%) remained below the target of 70%, a result that may, however, be in line with many other TSC intervention areas in India.

Conclusion

We discuss a number of methodological problems encountered thus far in this study that may be typical for sanitation trials. Nevertheless, it is expected that the trial procedures will allow measuring the effectiveness of a typical rural sanitation campaign, with sufficient accuracy and validity.
Commenting on the effects of surface treated- and non-surface treated TiO2 in the Caco-2 cell model
Authors: Faust James J , Zhang Wen , Koeneman Brian A , Chen Yongsheng , Capco David G
Published: November 2012

In a recent work published in Particle and Fibre Toxicology by Fisichella and coworkers investigating surface-modified TiO2 nanoparticle exposure in a model human intestinal epithelium (Caco-2), albeit degraded to mimic conditions in the gut and exposure to natural sunlight, purportedly resulted in no toxic effects. The authors (Fisichella et al.) claim to have confirmed the results of a 2010 report by Koeneman et al. However, the study by Koeneman and colleagues revealed significant effects of unmodified TiO2 nanoparticles. These contradicting data warrant further investigation into the possible effects of aluminum hydroxide, as these nanoparticles appear to have resulted in an abnormal apical surface in Caco-2 cells.

This is a comment on http://www.particleandfibretoxicology.com/content/pdf/1743-8977-9-18.pdf.