bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Joyce, Dogs, Eros, Metamorphosis, Revolution, and the Unity of Creation
Authors: O'Brien Darcy
Published: August 2007

A wise Dublin theologian recently reminded me of Whitehead’s doubts about the unity of creation. Whitehead noted that on a fine blue day he could wake up conscious that all nature was harmonious and one. But when, stepping into the street, he was attacked by a large nasty dog, nature became suddenly at least two.

Joyce hated and feared dogs, yet in Ulysses, a cur—the one which bounds like a hare, trots like a pony, trips like a buck, rears up like a bear, lopes like a calf, roots like a pig, claws like a panther, sniffs like a dog—becomes Joyce’s symbol of protean interconnections among disparate species. Simple changes of verb link animals together.

Joyce, whose word-play was sometimes unashamedly childish, chose a dog for his symbol because of what dog spells backwards. When we speak of Joyce’s sense of unity we speak of his sense of God. This is not to force Joyce back into the Church—though we should remember that, asked when exactly it was he had left the Church, Joyce replied, ‘That is for the Church to decide’. Joyce’s faith was peculiar and its motives may have been more literary than religious, but I am concerned here not with his salvation but with the idea of unity which his later works, especially Finnegans Wake, express.
Thomas Merton on the Contemplative Life
Authors: McGreggor Bede
Published: August 2007

Thomas Merton wrote in the letter in which he accepted the invitation to speak at the Congress in Bangkok where he was to die: ‘... the great problem for monasticism today is not survival but prophecy’. There are good reasons for thinking he was right. In the last few years most religious orders and congregations have been busily working on new rules and constitutions which are usually heavily loaded with quotable quotes from conciliar and postconciliar documents, carefully worded resumes of current theological writing, and skilfully framed paragraphs of compromise intended to satisfy the demands of as many pressure groups as possible. In practice these new documents are often ignored, apart from a little tightening up here and loosening up there and the inevitable litter of commissions that will in due course produce more painfully contrived documents that will also be as much ignored as implemented! This may appear to be a cynical assessment of what is going on in religious life today. In fairness it must be pointed out that the Church ordered the search for new rules and constitutions, they are provisional and experimental, and the discussions that took place at every level prior to their formulation have initiated a long overdue rethinking of religious life. Nevertheless, there continue to be more departures and fewer arrivals to religious life. There is no shortage of new laws but an obvious dearth of true prophets. From his new book Thomas Merton emerges as one of the major prophets in contemporary religious life. It would be a pity if he goes unheard because of the din created by the staggering volume of second-rate writing on religious life.
Women's Liberation and Christian Marriage
Authors: Nash Daphne
Published: August 2007

Any serious analysis of the systematic oppression of women must focus the greater part of its attention on the structure and role of the family. For us in the West the prevailing ideology identifies as central to a woman’s task in life the running of a husband-and-family, while for the man, his wife and family belong to the private, ‘unimportant’ side of life—to his ‘spare time’. We are taught to equate marriage with having a family, and a family with the bourgeois nuclear family of two parents and a few children living as a self- contained unit. In this guise the family is justifiably condemned by feminists and some psychologists as the most immediate locus of the oppression of women and children. It has the complex function of underpinning the capitalist economy by being the consumer unit it depends on, and of perpetuating both itself and the repressive economic and political system by being one of the most influential places (along with school) where children are brought to see themselves and the world in the terms of the prevailing ideology, and thus to become law-abiding citizens. On top of this is the severe economic pressure on women to marry, while men can afford not to if they like. Working-class and many middle-class women cannot earn enough to survive on their own.

The means proposed by various feminist analysts for the economic, political, psychological and sexual liberation of women always include the abolition of the nuclear family. A Christian committed to the struggle for women’s liberation must question the point and form of Christian marriage as it is normally expressed.
Judgment and the New Morality
Authors: Hauerwas Stanley
Published: August 2007

This essay is an attempt at a modest diatribe against some of the themes often associated with the ‘new moral theology’. It is my contention that in our enthusiasm for the seeming freedom promised in the new love ethic we have forgotten that the self must be transformed if we are to see the world as it is, and that the transformation into loving persons is not accomplished overnight by declaring our good intentions but by submitting patiently to the suffering that makes us real. We have impoverished our ethics by assuming that our lives can easily embody and reflect the good. In our moral behaviour, we have tacitly accepted existence in a world where God does not exist; in such a world, evil often appears beautiful and even kind. Such a situation is all the more pernicious because we claim to base our self-imposed blindness on love, kindness, justice, and even Jesus Christ. The main purpose of this essay is to try to locate some of the problems that have led us to confuse illusion with reality, for only when we understand the nature of our self-deception can we begin to appreciate how wonderful and yet how painful it is to live in a world where the good is not easily done.
Joseph Berington‐‘Prophet of Ecumenism’?
Authors: Holmes J. Derek
Published: August 2007

The Reverend Joseph Berington (1743-1827) has never had a particularly good press even from sympathetic Catholic historians. This is almost certainly due to the fact that he was a leading supporter of the cisalpine, if not gallican, Catholic Committee and was one of those Catholics who belived that an Oath of Supremacy, properly understood, was not incompatible with Catholic principles. As a result of his attitude and activities, he was at one stage censured by the bishops and deprived of his faculties. Berington himself felt that English Catholics had suspected him since he taught philosophy at Douay where he was regarded as being too modern and bold in his philosophical opinions, and that this explained the later questioning of his orthodoxy. Joseph Gillow simply claims that Berington’s ‘love of novelty and of the affected liberality of the day created great prejudice against his writings, which, however, was considerably removed before his death’.

Yet according to a ‘Memoir’ published in the Catholic Miscellany, Berington made ‘the first open and bold attack ... on the immense mass of Protestant prejudice that had been accumulating against Catholics for more than two centuries’, while the Reflections addressed to the Rev. John Hawkins was described as his ‘principal work on religious controversy’. The story of this particular publication began in America during 1784 when Charles Wharton, one of the first American Jesuits, published his Letter to the Roman Catholics of the City of Worcester. This personal apologia for leaving the Church was addressed to the English Catholics whom he had served as chaplain.
Spatial variation in population density across the geographical range in helminth parasites of yellow perchPerca flavescens
Authors: Poulin Robert , Dick Terry A.
Published: August 2007

The abundance of a species is not constant across its geographical range; it has often been assumed to decrease from the centre of a species’ range toward its margins. The central assumption of this “favourable centre” model is tested for the first time with parasites, using different species of helminth parasites exploiting fish as definitive hosts. Data on prevalence (percentage of hosts that are infected) and abundance (mean no. parasites per host) were compiled for 8 helminth species occurring in 23 populations of yellow perchPerca flavescens, from continental North America. For each parasite species, correlations were computed between latitude and both local prevalence and abundance values. In addition, the relationships between the relative prevalence or abundance in one locality and the distance between that locality and the one where the maximum value was reported, were assessed separately for each species to determine whether abundance tends to decrease away from the presumed centre of the range, where it peaks. For both the cestodeProteocephalus pearseiand the acanthocephalanLeptorhynchoides thecatus, there was a positive relationship between prevalence or abundance and the latitude of the sampled population. There was also a significant negative relationship between relative prevalence and the distance from the locality showing the maximum value inP. pearsei, but no such pattern was observed for the other 7 parasite species. Since this single significant decrease in prevalence with increasing distance from the peak value may be confounded by a latitudinal gradient, it appears that the distribution of abundance in parasites of perch does not follow the favourable centre model. This means that the environmental variables affecting the density of parasites (host availability, abiotic conditions) do not show pronounced spatial autocorrelation, with nearby sites not necessarily providing more similar conditions for the growth of parasite populations than distant sites.
SLC26A9 is a Cl− channel regulated by the WNK kinases
Authors: Dorwart Michael R. , Shcheynikov Nikolay , Wang Youxue , Stippec Steve , Muallem Shmuel
Published: August 2007

SLC26A9 is a member of the SLC26 family of anion transporters, which is expressed at high levels in airway and gastric surface epithelial cells. The transport properties and regulation of SLC26A9, and thus its physiological function, are not known. Here we report that SLC26A9 is a highly selective Cl− channel with minimal OH−/HCO3− permeability that is regulated by the WNK kinases. Expression in Xenopus oocytes and simultaneous measurement of membrane potential or current, intracellular pH (pHi) and intracellular Cl− (Cl−i) revealed that expression of SLC26A9 resulted in a large Cl− current. SLC26A9 displays a selectivity sequence of I− > Br− > NO3− > Cl− > Glu−, but it conducts Br− > Cl− > I− > NO3− > Glu−, with NO3− and I− inhibiting the Cl− conductance. Similarly, expression of SLC26A9 in HEK cells resulted in a large Cl− current. Although detectable, OH− and HCO3− fluxes in oocytes expressing SLC26A9 were very small. Moreover, HCO3− had no discernable effect on the Cl− current, the reversal potential in the presence or absence of Cl−o and, importantly, HCO3− had no effect on Cl− fluxes. These findings indicate that SLC26A9 is a Cl− channel with minimal OH−/HCO3− permeability. Co‐expression of SLC26A9 with the WNK kinases WNK1, WNK3 or WNK4 inhibited SLC26A9 activity, and the inhibition was independent of WNK kinase activity. Immunolocalization in oocytes and cell surface biotinylation in HEK cells indicated that the WNK‐mediated inhibition of SLC26A9 activity is caused by reduced SLC26A9 surface expression. Expression of SLC26A9 in the airway and the response of the WNKs to homeostatic stress raise the possibility that SLC26A9 serves to mediate the response of the airway to stress.
Insulin hypersensitivity in mice lacking the V1b vasopressin receptor
Authors: Fujiwara Yoko , Hiroyama Masami , Sanbe Atsushi , Aoyagi Toshinori , Birumachi Jun‐ichi , Yamauchi Junji , Tsujimoto Gozoh , Tanoue Akito
Published: August 2007

We have reported that [Arg8]‐vasopressin‐stimulated insulin release is blunted in islet cells isolated from V1b receptor‐deficient (V1bR−/−) mice. In this study, we used V1bR−/− mice to examine the physiological role of the V1b receptor in regulating blood glucose levels in vivo, and we found that the fasting plasma glucose, insulin and glucagon levels were lower in V1bR−/− mice than in wild‐type (V1bR+/+) mice. Next, we evaluated glucose tolerance by performing an intraperitoneal glucose tolerance test (GTT). The plasma glucose and insulin levels during the GTT were lower in V1bR−/− mice than in V1bR+/+ mice. An insulin tolerance test (ITT) revealed that, after insulin administration, plasma glucose levels were lower in V1bR−/− mice than in V1bR+/+ mice. In addition, a hyperinsulinaemic–euglycaemic clamp study showed that the glucose infusion rate was increased in V1bR−/− mice, indicating that insulin sensitivity was enhanced at the in vivo level in V1bR−/− mice. Furthermore, we found that the V1b receptor was expressed in white adipose tissue and that insulin‐stimulated phosphorylation of Akt as an important signaling molecule was increased in adipocytes isolated from V1bR−/− mice. Thus, the blockade of the V1b receptor could result, at least in part, in enhanced insulin sensitivity by altering insulin signalling in adipocytes.
Effects of old age on human skeletal muscle energetics during fatiguing contractions with and without blood flow
Authors: Lanza Ian R. , Larsen Ryan G. , Kent‐Braun Jane A.
Published: August 2007

We recently reported lower glycolytic flux (ATPGLY) and increased reliance on oxidative ATP synthesis (ATPOX) in contracting muscle of older compared to young humans. To further investigate this age‐related difference in the pathways of ATP synthesis, we used magnetic resonance spectroscopy to determine the rates of ATPOX, ATPGLYand net phosphocreatine hydrolysisin vivoduring maximal muscle contractions under free‐flow (FF) and ischaemic (ISC) conditions in the ankle dorsiflexors of 20 young (27 ± 3 years; 10 male, 10 female) and 18 older (70 ± 5 years; 10 male, 8 female) adults. We hypothesized that ATPGLYwould be higher in young compared to old during FF contractions, but that old would be unable to increase ATPGLYduring ISC to match that of the young, which would suggest impaired glycolytic ATP synthesis with old age. Peak glycolytic flux during FF was lower in older (0.8 ± 0.1 mmATP s−1) compared to young (1.4 ± 0.1 mmATP s−1,P< 0.001) subjects. During ISC, peak ATPGLYincreased in old to a level similar to that of young (1.4 ± 0.2 mmATP s−1, 1.3 ± 0.2 mmATP s−1, respectively;P= 0.86), suggesting that glycolytic function remains intact in aged musclein vivo. Notably, older adults fatigued less than young during both FF and ISC (P≤ 0.004). These results provide novel evidence of unimpairedin vivoglycolytic function in the skeletal muscle of older adults during maximal isometric dorsiflexion, and suggest a potential role for differences in metabolic economy and as a result, metabolite accumulation, in the fatigue resistance of the old.
Quantitative characterization of metastatic disease in the spine. Part I. Semiautomated segmentation using atlas‐based deformable registration and the level set method
Authors: Hardisty M. , Gordon L. , Agarwal P. , Skrinskas T. , Whyne C.
Published: August 2007

Quantitative assessment of metastatic disease in bone is often considered immeasurable and, as such, patients with skeletal metastases are often excluded from clinical trials. In order to effectively quantify the impact of metastatic tumor involvement in the spine, accurate segmentation of the vertebra is required. Manual segmentation can be accurate but involves extensive and time‐consuming user interaction. Potential solutions to automating segmentation of metastatically involved vertebrae are demons deformable image registration and level set methods. The purpose of this study was to develop a semiautomated method to accurately segment tumor‐bearing vertebrae using the aforementioned techniques. By maintaining morphology of an atlas, the demons‐level set composite algorithm was able to accurately differentiate between trans‐cortical tumors and surrounding soft tissue of identical intensity. The algorithm successfully segmented both the vertebral body and trabecular centrum of tumor‐involved and healthy vertebrae. This work validates our approach as equivalent in accuracy to an experienced user.
Computerized‐aid diagnosis of breast mass using ultrasound image
Authors: Tian Jia‐Wei , Sun Li‐Tao , Guo Yan‐Hui , Cheng H. D. , Zhang Ying‐Tao
Published: August 2007

This paper presents a comparative study of the diagnostic results of the ultrasologists with/without using a novel enhancement algorithm for breast ultrasonic images based on fuzzy entropy principle and textural information. Totally, 350 ultrasound images of 115 cases were analyzed including 59 benign and 56 malignant lesions. The original breast images were fuzzified, the edge and textural information were extracted, and the images were enhanced. The original and enhanced images were assessed and evaluated by ultrasologists using double blind method before and after enhancement. The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity were calculated by the areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. And the two diagnostic results before and after enhancement were compared by Chi‐square test in a table. The results demonstrated that the discrimination rate of breast masses had been highly improved after employing the novel enhancement algorithm. The result indicates the sensitivity could be raised from 74.3% to 89.3% with the false‐positive rate 14.3%, and the area under the ROC curve of diagnosis also increased from 0.84 to 0.93. The novel enhancement algorithm can increase the classification accuracy and decrease the rate of missing and misdiagnosis, and it is useful for breast cancer control.
Simplified skipped phase encoding and edge deghosting (SPEED) for imaging sparse objects with applications to MRA
Authors: Chang Zheng , Xiang Qing‐San
Published: August 2007

The fast imaging method named skipped phase encoding and edge deghosting (SPEED) has been demonstrated to reduce scan time considerably with typical magnetic resonance imaging data. In this work, SPEED is simplified with improved efficiency to accelerate the scan of sparse objects; we refer to this method as S‐SPEED. S‐SPEED partially samples ‐space into two interleaved data sets, each with the same skip size of but a different relative shift in phase encoding. The sampled data are then Fourier transformed into two ghosted images with aliasing ghosts. Given the sparseness of signal distribution, the ghosted images are simply modeled with a single‐layer structure, analogous to that used in maximum‐intensity projection. With an algorithm based on a least‐square‐error solution, a deghosted image is solved, and a residual map is output for quality control. S‐SPEED can be generalized to include more layers with additional acquisitions for refined results. Without differential filtering and full central ‐space sampling, S‐SPEED reduces scan time further and achieves more straightforward reconstruction, as compared with SPEED. In this work, S‐SPEED is applied to accelerate magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) by taking advantage of the sparse nature of MRA data. With sparse phantom data and in vivo phase contrast MRA data, S‐SPEED is demonstrated to achieve satisfactory results with an acceleration factor of 5.5 using a single coil.
Polychromatic phase‐contrast computed tomography
Authors: Donnelly Edwin F. , Price Ronald R. , Lewis Kenneth G. , Pickens David R.
Published: August 2007

Polychromatic phase‐contrast radiography differs from traditional (absorption‐only) radiography in that the method requires at least a partially coherent x‐ray source and the resulting images contain information about the phase shifts of x‐rays in addition to the traditional absorption information. In a typical embodiment, this effect results in a measurable enhancement in image contrast at the edges of objects. In this study, a phase‐contrast imaging system was adapted to allow an object to be imaged at multiple projections, and these projections were used to generate phase‐contrast computed tomography images. The images obtained with this technique show edge enhancements surrounding the objects within the image.
Effect of recombination in a high quantum efficiency prototype ionization‐chamber‐based electronic portal imaging device
Authors: Gopal A. , Samant S. S.
Published: August 2007

The quantum efficiency (QE) of an imaging detector can be increased by utilizing a thick, high‐density detection medium to increase the number of quantum interactions. However, image quality is more accurately described by the detection quantum efficiency (DQE). If a significant fraction of the increase in the number of detected quanta from a thick, dense detector were to result in useful imaging signal, this represents a favorable case where enhanced QE leads to increased DQE. However, for ionization‐type detectors, one factor that limits DQE is the recombination between ion pairs that acts as a secondary quantum sink due to which enhancement in QE may not result in higher DQE depending on the extent of the signal loss from recombination. Therefore, an analysis of signal loss mechanisms or quantum sinks in an imaging system is essential for validating the overall benefit of high QE detectors. In this paper, a study of ion recombination as a secondary quantum sink is presented for a high QE prototype ion‐chamber‐based electronic portal imaging device (EPID): the kinestatic charge detector (KCD). The KCD utilizes a high pressure noble gas (krypton or xenon at ) and an arbitrarily large detector thickness (of the order of centimeters), resulting in a high QE imager. Compared with commercial amorphous silicon flat panel imagers that provide , the KCD has much higher DQE. Studies indicated that for thick, xenon chamber, and for a thick chamber. A series of experiments was devised and conducted to determine the signal loss due to recombination for a KCD chamber. The measurements indicated a fractional recombination loss of about 14% for a krypton chamber and about 18% for a xenon chamber under standard operating conditions ( chamber pressure and electric field intensity). A theoretical treatment of the effect of recombination on imaging signal‐to‐noise ratio was applied to quantify the loss in DQE. These calculations indicated that recombination had a limited effect on DQE under standard operating conditions. This was validated by good agreement between experimentally measured DQE and that obtained using Monte Carlo simulations that did not account for recombination.
Characterization of noise sources for two generations of computed radiography systems using powder and crystalline photostimulable phosphors
Authors: Mackenzie Alistair , Honey Ian D.
Published: August 2007

The performances of two generations of computed radiography (CR) were tested and compared in terms of resolution and noise characteristics. The main aim was to characterize and quantify the noise sources in the images. The systems tested were (1) Agfa CR 25.0, a flying spot reader with powder phosphor image plates (MD 40.0); and (2) the Agfa DX‐S, a line‐scanning CR reader with needle crystal phosphor image plates (HD 5.0). For both systems, the standard metrics of presampled modulation transfer function (MTF), normalized noise power spectra (NNPS) and detective quantum efficiency (DQE) were measured using standard radiation quality RQA5 as defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission. The various noise sources contributing to the NNPS were separated by using knowledge of their relationship with air kerma, MTF, absorption efficiency and antialiasing filters. The DX‐S MTF was superior compared with the CR 25.0. The maximum difference in MTF between the DX‐S scan and CR 25.0 subscan directions was 0.13 at . For a nominal detector air kerma of , the peak DQE of the DX‐S was , which was over double that of the CR 25.0 of . The additive electronic noise was negligible on the CR 25.0 but calculated to be constant at on the DX‐S. The DX‐S has improved image quality compared with a traditional flying spot reader. The separation of the noise sources indicates that the improvements in DQE of the DX‐S are due not only to the higher quantum, efficiency and MTF, but also the lower structure, secondary quantum, and excess noise.
Detection of treatment setup errors between two CT scans for patients with head and neck cancer
Authors: Ezzell Leah C. , Hansen Eric K. , Quivey Jeanne M. , Xia Ping
Published: August 2007

Accuracy of treatment setup for head and neck patients undergoing intensity‐modulated radiation therapy is of paramount importance. The conventional method using orthogonal portal images can only detect translational setup errors while the most frequent setup errors for head and neck patients could be rotational errors. With the rapid development of image‐guided radiotherapy, three‐dimensional images are readily acquired and can be used to detect both translational and rotational setup errors. The purpose of this study is to determine the significance of rotational variations between two planning CT scans acquired for each of eight head and neck patients, who experienced substantial weight loss or tumor shrinkage. To this end, using a rigid body assumption, we developed an in‐house computer program that utilizes matrix transformations to align point bony landmarks with an incremental best‐fit routine. The program returns the quantified translational and rotational shifts needed to align the scans of each patient. The program was tested using a phantom for a set of known translational and rotational shifts. For comparison, a commercial treatment planning system was used to register the two CT scans and estimate the translational errors for these patients. For the eight patients, we found that the average magnitudes and standard deviations of the rotational shifts about the transverse, anterior–posterior, and longitudinal axes were , , and , respectively. The average magnitudes and standard deviations of the translational shifts were , , while the differences detected between our program and the CT–CT fusion method were , , and in the left–right, anterior–posterior, and superior–inferior directions, respectively. A trend of larger rotational errors resulting in larger translational differences between the two methods was observed. In conclusion, conventional methods used for verifying patient positioning may misinterpret rotational shifts as translational shifts, and our study demonstrated that rotational errors may be significant in the treatment of head and neck cancer.
Information‐theoretic CAD system in mammography: Entropy‐based indexing for computational efficiency and robust performance
Authors: Tourassi Georgia D. , Harrawood Brian , Singh Swatee , Lo Joseph Y.
Published: August 2007

We have previously presented a knowledge‐based computer‐assisted detection (KB‐CADe) system for the detection of mammographic masses. The system is designed to compare a query mammographic region with mammographic templates of known ground truth. The templates are stored in an adaptive knowledge database. Image similarity is assessed with information theoretic measures (e.g., mutual information) derived directly from the image histograms. A previous study suggested that the diagnostic performance of the system steadily improves as the knowledge database is initially enriched with more templates. However, as the database increases in size, an exhaustive comparison of the query case with each stored template becomes computationally burdensome. Furthermore, blind storing of new templates may result in redundancies that do not necessarily improve diagnostic performance. To address these concerns we investigated an entropy‐based indexing scheme for improving the speed of analysis and for satisfying database storage restrictions without compromising the overall diagnostic performance of our KB‐CADe system. The indexing scheme was evaluated on two different datasets as (i) a search mechanism to sort through the knowledge database, and (ii) a selection mechanism to build a smaller, concise knowledge database that is easier to maintain but still effective. There were two important findings in the study. First, entropy‐based indexing is an effective strategy to identify fast a subset of templates that are most relevant to a given query. Only this subset could be analyzed in more detail using mutual information for optimized decision making regarding the query. Second, a selective entropy‐based deposit strategy may be preferable where only high entropy cases are maintained in the knowledge database. Overall, the proposed entropy‐based indexing scheme was shown to reduce the computational cost of our KB‐CADe system by 55% to 80% while maintaining the system's diagnostic performance.
A respiratory‐gated treatment system for proton therapy
Authors: Lu Hsiao‐Ming , Brett Robert , Sharp Gregory , Safai Soiros , Jiang Steve , Flanz Jay , Kooy Hanne
Published: August 2007

Proton therapy offers the potential for excellent dose conformity and reduction in integral dose. The superior dose distribution is, however, much more sensitive to changes in radiological depths along the beam path than for photon fields. Respiratory motion can cause such changes for treatments sites like lung, liver, and mediastinum and thus affect the proton dose distribution significantly. We have implemented and commissioned a respiratory‐gated system for range‐modulated treatment fields. The gating system was designed to ensure that each gate always contains complete modulation cycles so that for any beam segment the delivered dose has the planned depth‐dose distribution. Measurements have been made to estimate the time delays for the various components of the system. The total delay between the actual motion and the beam on/off control is in the range of . Time‐resolved dose measurements and film tests were also conducted to examine the overall gating effect.
Experimental validation of a versatile system of CT dosimetry using a conventional ion chamber: Beyond
Authors: Dixon Robert L. , Ballard Adam C.
Published: August 2007

This article is an experimental demonstration and authentication of a new method of computed tomography dosimetry [R. L. Dixon, Med. Phys. 30, 1272–1280 (2003)], which utilizes a short, conventional ion chamber rather than a pencil chamber, and which is more versatile than the latter. The value of correctly predicts the accumulated dose only for a total scan length equal to 100 mm and underestimates the limiting equilibrium dose approached for longer, clinically relevant body scan lengths [R. L. Dixon, Med. Phys. 30, 1272–1280 (2003); K. D. Nakonechny, B. G. Fallone, and S. Rathee, Med. Phys. 32, 98–109 (2005); S. Mori, M. Endo, K. Nishizawa, T. Tsunoo, T. Aoyama, H. Fujiwara, and K. Murase, Med. Phys. 32, 1061–1069 (2005); R. L. Dixon, M. T. Munley, and E. Bayram, Med. Phys. 32, 3712–3728 (2005); R. L. Dixon, Med. Phys. 33, 3973–3976 (2006)]. Dixon [Med. Phys. 30, 1272–1280 (2003)] originally proposed an alternative using a short ion chamber and a helical scan acquisition to collect the same integral for any scan length (and not limited 100 mm). The primary purpose of this work is to demonstrate experimentally the implementation, robustness, and versatility of this small ion chamber method in measuring the accumulated dose in the body phantom for any desired scan length (up to the available phantom length) including the limiting equilibrium dose (symbolically ), and validation of the method against the pencil chamber methodology. Additionally, a simple and robust method for independently verifying the active length of a pencil chamber is described. The results of measurements made in a 400 mm long, 32 cm diameter polymethylmethacrylate body phantom using a small Farmer‐type ion chamber and two pencil chambers of lengths and 150 mm confirm that the two methodologies provide the same dose values at the corresponding scan lengths . The measured equilibrium doses obtained for GE MDCT scanners at 120 kVp are on the central axis and 1.22 on the peripheral axes, illustrating a nontrivial shortfall of in that regard and in good agreement with comparable data [S. Mori, M. Endo, K. Nishizawa, T. Tsunoo, T. Aoyama, H. Fujiwara, and K. Murase, Med. Phys. 32, 1061–1069 (2005); J. M. Boone, Med. Phys., 1364–1371 (2007)].
Coupled Ferric Oxides and Sulfates on the Martian Surface
Authors: Bibring J.-P. , Arvidson R. E. , Gendrin A. , Gondet B. , Langevin Y. , Le Mouelic S. , Mangold N. , Morris R. V. , Mustard J. F. , Poulet F. , Quantin C. , Sotin C.
Published: August 2007

The Mars Exploration Rover (MER), Opportunity, showed that layered sulfate deposits in Meridiani Planum formed during a period of rising acidic ground water. Crystalline hematite spherules formed in the deposits as a consequence of aqueous alteration and were concentrated on the surface as a lag deposit as wind eroded the softer sulfate rocks. On the basis of Mars Express Observatoire pour la Minéralogie, l'Eau, les Glaces et l'Activité (OMEGA) orbital data, we demonstrate that crystalline hematite deposits are associated with layered sulfates in other areas on Mars, implying that Meridiani-like ground water systems were indeed widespread and representative of an extensive acid sulfate aqueous system.
Asymmetry in the Structure of the ABC Transporter-Binding Protein Complex BtuCD-BtuF
Authors: Hvorup Rikki N. , Goetz Birke A. , Niederer Martina , Hollenstein Kaspar , Perozo Eduardo , Locher Kaspar P.
Published: August 2007

BtuCD is an adenosine triphosphate–binding cassette (ABC) transporter that translocates vitamin B
12
from the periplasmic binding protein BtuF into the cytoplasm of Escherichia coli. The 2.6 angstrom crystal structure of a complex BtuCD-F reveals substantial conformational changes as compared with the previously reported structures of BtuCD and BtuF. The lobes of BtuF are spread apart, and B
12
is displaced from the binding pocket. The transmembrane BtuC subunits reveal two distinct conformations, and the translocation pathway is closed to both sides of the membrane. Electron paramagnetic resonance spectra of spin-labeled cysteine mutants reconstituted in proteoliposomes are consistent with the conformation of BtuCD-F that was observed in the crystal structure. A comparison with BtuCD and the homologous HI1470/71 protein suggests that the structure of BtuCD-F may reflect a posttranslocation intermediate.
Superconducting Interfaces Between Insulating Oxides
Authors: Reyren N. , Thiel S. , Caviglia A. D. , Kourkoutis L. Fitting , Hammerl G. , Richter C. , Schneider C. W. , Kopp T. , Rüetschi A.-S. , Jaccard D. , Gabay M. , Muller D. A. , Triscone J.-M. , Mannhart J.
Published: August 2007

At interfaces between complex oxides, electronic systems with unusual electronic properties can be generated. We report on superconductivity in the electron gas formed at the interface between two insulating dielectric perovskite oxides, LaAlO
3
and SrTiO
3
. The behavior of the electron gas is that of a two-dimensional superconductor, confined to a thin sheet at the interface. The superconducting transition temperature of ≅ 200 millikelvin provides a strict upper limit to the thickness of the superconducting layer of ≅ 10 nanometers.
Delirium in advanced disease
Authors: Harris Dylan
Published: August 2007

Delirium in advanced disease, while common, is often not recognised or poorly treated. The aim of management of delirium is to assess and treat reversible causes in combination with environmental, psychological and pharmacological intervention to control symptoms. Delirium presents significant distress and impedes communication between patients and their families at the end of life. A structured approach to recognise, assess and manage delirium is essential for all clinicians caring for patients with terminal illness.
Stress cardiomyopathy: aetiology and management
Authors: Ramaraj Radhakrishnan
Published: August 2007

Stress cardiomyopathy is a condition caused by intense emotional or physical stress leading to rapid and severe reversible cardiac dysfunction. It mimics myocardial infarction with changes in the electrocardiogram and echocardiogram, but without any obstructive coronary artery disease. Due to the awareness created by the media and internet, every patient is aware that they should seek help immediately for chest pain. Therefore physicians should be aware of this new condition and how to diagnose and treat it, even though the causal mechanisms are not yet fully understood.
Melbourne Pathology
Authors: Sethuraman Kannan , Tirupati Devanath
Published: August 2007

Melbourne Pathology, a subsidiary of Sonic Health Care, provided a comprehensive range of pathology services as an aid in the diagnosis and treatment of patients in Melbourne and Central Victoria. In a capped funding and highly regulated market such as the pathology service market in Australia, the only way in which the sales of a provider could grow was usually at the expense of another provider. To combat this situation, Melbourne Pathology opted to compete by providing higher quality service and faster turnaround time. The recent results of Melbourne Pathology, however, indicated that although the average turnaround time was within the promised targets, significant percentage of jobs in routine category and over 10% of jobs in the urgent category failed to meet the established targets. The case is primarily intended to illustrate the impact of demand distortions in a service setting that arise due to lack of coordination among various entities in the service value chain and a failure to have an integrated perspective that aligns all departments towards a common goal. This phenomenon is similar to the bullwhip effect in supply chains of manufactured products which has received considerable attention during the past decade. The case provides opportunities for students to develop corrective actions to mitigate this problem.
Leveraging Capabilities at DRL (2003)
Authors: Pande Anadi Saran
Published: August 2007

The case discusses the history, growth and prospects of India's second largest pharmaceutical firm — Dr. Reddy's Laboratories (DRL). It details the strategies, actions, resources and capabilities of the company since its inception in 1985 to the close of the case in 2003. In the period up to the mid 1990s, DRL exploited the Indian process patent regime by leveraging its skills in reverse engineering patented drugs quickly and launching these faster than the rivals in the Indian market. However, the environment changed once India signed the GATT agreement in 1994. Competition in the domestic market had also heated up in mid 1990s. DRL maintained its lead by moving up the value curve and positioned itself in domestic formulations market while simultaneously exploiting its existing capabilities in developed markets by filing Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs). Realizing that it must quickly build such resources and capabilities that would be valuable in the post-WTO world, it started moving up the value curve into drug discovery for New Chemical Entities (NCEs). It met with some success as some multi-national firms licensed their molecules for clinical research. It was also successful in being the first to launch a generic version of a patented drug, thereby enjoying marketing exclusivity for six months in the US. As the date for India's integration with the world draws close, DRL was seen to proactively develop resources to thrive in the new post-WTO world. This case is useful in learning about effective responses to deregulation and the post-WTO environment.
RECOGNITION OF ENGINEERING DRAWING ENTITIES: REVIEW OF APPROACHES
Authors: ABLAMEYKO SERGEY V. , UCHIDA SEIICHI
Published: August 2007

Recognition of engineering drawing entities is one of the most difficult stages in engineering drawing interpretation and many attempts to recognize various types of ED entities have been made. In this paper, we review algorithms for the recognition of ED entities, especially dimensions and crosshatching areas. For the recognition of dimensions, we analyze how dimension texts can be separated from graphics and how arrowheads of dimension lines are recognized. We also analyze the recent systems of ED interpretation. Finally, future tasks are discussed.
KERNEL GBDA FOR RELEVANCE FEEDBACK IN IMAGE RETRIEVAL
Authors: LI JING , YUAN YUAN
Published: August 2007

Relevance feedback, as a user-in-the-loop mechanism, has been widely employed to improve the performance of content-based image retrieval. Generally, in a relevance feedback algorithm, two key components are: (1) how to select a subset of effective features from a large-scale feature pool and, (2) correspondingly, how to construct a suitable dissimilarity measure. In previous work, the biased discriminant analysis (BDA) has been proposed to address these two problems during the feedback iterations. However, BDA encounters the so called small samples size problem because it has a lack of training samples. In this paper, we utilize the generalized singular value decomposition (GSVD) to significantly reduce the small samples size problem in BDA. The developed algorithm is named GSVD for BDA (GBDA). We then kernelize the GBDA to nonlinear kernel feature space. A large amount of experiments were carried out upon a large scale database, which contains 17800 images. From the experimental results, GBDA and its kernelization are demonstrated to outperform the traditional BDA-based relevance feedback approaches and their kernel extensions, respectively.
LOCAL GABOR BINARY PATTERNS BASED ON MUTUAL INFORMATION FOR FACE RECOGNITION
Authors: ZHANG WENCHAO , SHAN SHIGUANG , CHEN XILIN , GAO WEN
Published: August 2007

Appropriate representation is one of the keys to the success of face recognition technologies. In this paper, we present a novel face representation approach using a reduced set of local histograms based on Local Gabor Binary Patterns (LGBP). In the proposed method, a face image is first represented by the LGBP histograms which are extracted from the LGBP images. Then, the local LGBP histograms with high separability and low relevance are selected to obtain a dimension-reduced face descriptor. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method not only greatly reduces the dimensionality of face representation, but also outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches for face recognition, such as Fisherfaces, and Gabor Fisher Classification (GFC).
Quaternary
Authors: Graham C. C. , Straw A.
Published: August 2007

The Quaternary is represented widely over land areas and sea floors around Britain by sediments formed under conditions which ranged from warm temperate to glacial, humid to semi-arid, and which involved glacial, periglacial, fluvial, mass movement, marine and aeolian processes.

The distribution of Quaternary sediments has been depicted on maps of the Geological Survey since the 1840s and most recently on the Ordnance Survey Quaternary Map of the United Kingdom, (1977, two sheets) at a scale of 1:625,000. The Oxford Atlas of Britain and Northern Ireland (1963) and the Atlas of Ireland (1979) include Quaternary maps, and Britain is covered by two sheets of the International Quaternary Map of Europe (1967) at a scale of 1:2,500,000. Maps of sea-floor sediments are being published as surveys are completed (Cameron et al. 1987). Stages of the Quaternary sequence as currently established are listed by West (1980) and Bowen et al. (1986).

Qla: Quaternary geography

The maximum extent ever reached by icesheets in southern Britain is better known in the east, and the western limit of 1°30'W is an approximation because definitive deposits are sparsely distributed. The Scilly Islands represent the most southerly point reached by a British icesheet, but the limit across the Celtic Sea is hypothetical, drawn with regard both to the nature of the continental shelf and to the fact that Ireland is known to have been wholly glacierized on at least one occasion. This maximum limit may be diachronous. Bowen et al. (1986) regard it as wholly Anglian, but
Precambrian
Authors: Anderton R. , Gibbons W. , Nicholson P. G.
Published: August 2007

For much of Precambrian time, it is not possible to reconstruct any sort of meaningful palaeogeographies. For this Atlas, therefore, the earliest reconstructions are for Proterozoic intervals and are, of necessity, limited geographically.

The term 'Torridonian' has long since been used to refer to the entire Upper Proterozoic succession of predominantly fluvial clastic sediments situated along the northwest coast of Scotland. These rocks rest unconformably on Archaean to Lower Proterozoic Lewisian Gneiss, are overlain unconformably by Cambro-Ordovician marine sediments, and constitute the best sedimentary exposures in the British Isles. Stratigraphically, 'Torridonian' deposits are subdivided into the Stoer, Sleat and Torridon groups. The Stoer and Torridon groups are separated by an angular unconformity (Lawson 1965; Stewart 1969) and have been dated at 968 and 777 Ma respectively (Moorbath 1969; Stewart 1982), although these ages may be up to 100 Ma too young (see discussion in Stewart 1988
a
, p. 98). Sedimentation dates of
c
. 1050 (Stoer Group) and
c
. 850 (Torridon Group) are, therefore, likely to be more realistic.

The lowest of the three groups consists of a diverse suite of red bed deposits up to 2 km thick representing fluvial, aeolian and ephemeral lacustrine environments, suggesting a semi-arid climate (Stewart 1988
a
). Deposition occurred at an approximate palaeolatitude of 15°N (Torsvik & Sturt 1987). Stoer Group sediments have been divided by Stewart (1988
a
) into seven constituent facies. The illustrated palaeogeographical time interval encompasses the end of Bay of Stoer facies deposition, the

The Bay .of Stoer facies consists of roughly 200 m
Cambrian
Authors: Brasier M. D. , Ingham J. K. , Rushton A. W. A.
Published: August 2007

Aspects of the history of the Cambrian System, and especially its usage in the British Isles, are discussed by Holland (1974). Rushton (1974), Cowie (1974) and Dhonau & Holland (1974) give general accounts of Cambrian stratigraphy in the British Isles, with extensive bibliographies, and the correlation is discussed by Cowie et al. (1972)

The limits of the Cambrian System are still unsettled. The Precambrian/ Cambrian boundary has been the subject of much recent research, concentrated especially on strata of Tommotian and Meishucunian age (Cowie & Brasier 1989). These stages are characterized by faunas of small shelly fossils but biostratigraphical correlation based on them is still rather insecure and a consensus on the basal Cambrian stratotype has yet to be reached (Brasier 19896)

The upper limit of the Cambrian (the base of the Ordovician System) is likewise unsettled. Cowie et al. (1972) took the base of the Ordovician at the base of the Arenig Series, thereby including the Tremadoc Series in the Cambrian. Nowadays a level at the base of the Tremadoc, for long adopted in continental Europe and elsewhere, is more widely accepted in Britain, and is employed here. However, the exact horizon for the base of the Ordovician, and the locality at which it is to be defined, are still under debate.

There are no standard series defined in the Cambrian System. It has long been customary to speak of Lower, Middle and Upper Cambrian, and treat these as series, but they are employed in different senses in different