bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Comparative Effects of Recombinant Staphylokinase and Streptokinase on Platelet Aggregation
Authors: Abdelouahed Mustapha , Hatmi Mohamed , Helft Gérard , Emadi Sharareh , Elalamy Ismaïl , Samama Meyer Michel 
Published: July 2018

SummaryRecombinant staphylokinase (RSTA) has been shown to offer promise as a thrombolytic agent. In contrast to streptokinase (SK), few studies have been devoted to possible effects of RSTA on platelets. We have compared the capacity of RSTA and SK to trigger platelet aggregation and to modify ADP (2.5 µM) response in platelet-rich plasma (PRP) of 25 healthy subjects. Thus, exposure of PRP to SK (40 to 50 µg/ml) induced platelet aggregation in 6 out of 25 subjects. However, under the same conditions, RSTA failed to induce platelet aggregation in all cases (25 out of 25 subjects). In contrast to RSTA, SK (0.4 to 50 µg/ml) greatly reduced ADP-induced platelet aggregation in 12 out of 25 subjects. Preincubation of plasma with SK is associated with a decrease in the fibrinogen concentration. Furthermore, there was a good correlation between SK-induced fibrinogenolysis and SK- induced platelet aggregation defect (r2 = 0.9; p = 0.001). No fibrino genolysis was observed when different amounts of RSTA (0.4 to 50 µg/ml) were incubated in plasma for one min. However, there was a marked decrease in fibrinogen level (about 50%) when the plasma was incubated for five min with a very high concentration of RSTA. SK markedly enhanced the platelet response to ADP in 13 out of 25 subjects. In PRP of 6 out of 25 subjects, SK induces platelet aggregation and potentiates platelet response to ADP, however in PRP of 7 out of 25 subjects, SK caused only the increase of platelet response to ADP. The monoclonal antibody anti-FcγRIIal, IV-3 (2 [µ/ml), abolished SK-induced platelet aggregation and SK-enhanced ADP-induced platelet aggregation. In all cases (25 out of 25 subjects), RSTA failed to potentiate platelet response to ADP.These findings confirm that RSTA has a lesser fibrinogenolytic ability than SK and suggest its negligeable effect on platelet function.
Variation in Plasma Fibrinogen over One Year: Relationships with Genetic Polymorphisms and Non-genetic Factors
Authors: Väisänen Sari , Rauramaa Rainer , Penttilä IIkka , Rankinen Tuomo , Gagnon Jacques , Pérusse Louis , Chagnon Monique , Bouchard Claude 
Published: July 2018

SummaryWe analyzed plasma fibrinogen level in relation to genetic polymorphisms in the a- and β-fibrinogen gene loci. Furthermore, the association of other CVD risk markers with fibrinogen was studied twice, with a time interval of one year in 50 to 60 year old men (n = 183). DNA polymorphisms were detected by PCR and digestion with TaqI (α-fibrinogen), Hind III and Bcl I (β-fibrinogen) restriction enzymes. The correlation coefficient between fibrinogen measurements was 0.48 (p <0.001). Blood leucocytes and waist-to-hip circumference ratio were the strongest correlates of fibrinogen level in both examinations, and the changes in leucocyte count and plasma fibrinogen correlated positively (r = 0.40, p <0.001). In Eastern Finnish men, the Taq I, Hind III or Bcl I restriction fragment length polymorphisms of the a- or β-fibrinogen gene loci did not associate with fibrinogen level, either cross- sectionally or longitudinally.
Monitoring of r-Hirudin Anticoagulation during Cardiopulmonary Bypass – Assessment of the Whole Blood Ecarin Clotting Time
Authors: Pötzsch Bernd , Madlener Katharina , Seelig Christoph , Riess Christian F , Greinacher Andreas , Müller-Berghaus Gert 
Published: July 2018

SummaryThe use of recombinant ® hirudin as an anticoagulant in performing extracorporeal circulation systems including cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) devices requires a specific and easy to handle monitoring system. The usefulness of the celite-induced activated clotting time (ACT) and the activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) for r-hirudin monitoring has been tested on ex vivo blood samples obtained from eight patients treated with r-hirudin during open heart surgery. The very poor relationship between the prolongation of the ACT and APTT values and the concentration of r-hirudin as measured using a chromogenic factor Ila assay indicates that both assays are not suitable to monitor r-hirudin anticoagulation. As an alternative approach a whole blood clotting assay based on the prothrombin-activating snake venom ecarin has been tested. In vitro experiments using r-hirudin- spiked whole blood samples showed a linear relationship between the concentration of hirudin added and the prolongation of the clotting times up to a concentration of r-hirudin of 4.0 µg/ml. Interassay coefficients (CV) of variation between 2.1% and 5.4% demonstrate the accuracy of the ecarin clotting time (ECT) assay. Differences in the interindividual responsiveness to r-hirudin were analyzed on r-hirudin- spiked blood samples obtained from 50 healthy blood donors. CV- values between 1.8% and 6% measured at r-hirudin concentrations between 0.5 and 4 µg/ml indicate remarkably slight differences in r-hirudin responsiveness. ECT assay results of the ex vivo blood samples linearily correlate (r = 0.79) to the concentration of r-hirudin. Moreover, assay results were not influenced by treatment with aprotinin or heparin. These findings together with the short measuring time with less than 120 seconds warrant the whole blood ECT to be a suitable assay for monitoring of r-hirudin anticoagulation in cardiac surgery.
Potentially Clinically Important Inaccuracies in Testing for the Lupus Anticoagulant: an Analysis of Results from three Surveys of the UK National External Quality Assessment Scheme (NEQAS) for Blood Coagulation
Authors: Jennings I , Kitchen S , Woods T A.L , Preston F E , Greaves M 
Published: July 2018

SummaryThe identification of the presence of antiphospholipid in plasma is recognised to be of diagnostic and prognostic importance in subjects with thrombotic disease, recurrent miscarriage or collagen vascular disorders. A number of coagulation assays are currently employed for the detection of lupus anticoagulant (LA), many of which are influenced by reagent dependent and methodological variables.In the present study lyophilised plasma samples from three subjects with “strong”, “weak” and “absent” LA were tested in 220 centres. The most commonly used tests for LA were Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time (APTT), Dilute Russell Viper Venom Time (DRVVT) and Kaolin Clotting Time (KCT). Median DRVVT ratios were 1.75, 1.17 and 1.10 for the three samples. The presence of a strong LA was not detected by 4% of laboratories. The correct diagnosis was made by 94% of users of DRVVT and 85% of users of KCT. A weak LA was not detected by over half of centres. Correction was observed on addition of plasma and also in platelet neutralisation. The correct diagnosis was made by 37% of users of DRVVT and 27% of users of KCT. Lupus Anticoagulant was falsely considered to be present in a Factor IX deficient plasma by approximately one quarter of laboratories. Amongst users of DRVVT and KCT absence of LA in this sample was correctly reported by 73% and 69% of centres respectively.The accuracy of testing for LA in the present study is suboptimal and this is likely to have important clinical consequences. There is clearly a need for greater conformity in the selection and performance of LA tests to facilitate accurate diagnosis of this important group of disorders.
PCR-RFLP Detection od PAI-2 Gene Variants: Prevelence in Ethnic Groups and Disease Relationship in patients Undergoing corony Angiography
Authors: Foy Carole A , Grant Peter J 
Published: July 2018

SummaryPAI-2 is a fibrinolytic inhibitor produced predominantly by monocytes. Most PAI-2 is intracellular making study in clinical conditions difficult. Abnormalities in production may be associated with inflammation and fibrinolysis at sites of tissue damage such as the atherosclerotic plaque.PAI-2 gene variants have been described: variant A consists of Asn120, Asn404 and Ser413 and variant B consists of Asp120, Lys404 and Cys413. We designed a PCR-RFLP assay using primers spanning the region containing Asn/Lys404 and Ser/Cys413. Variant B contains an Mwol restriction site. We analysed 302 Pima Indians and 286 healthy Caucasian volunteers. To investigate relationships between genotype and vascular disease we analysed 333 Caucasian patients undergoing coronary angiography.Gene variant B was more common in the Pimas than in Caucasians (p <0.0001). There was no significant difference in genotype distribution between the volunteers and patients. In the patients there was no association between genotype and either a history of MI or extent of coronary atheroma.
A Reference Material for Harmonisation of D-Dimer Assays
Authors: Nieuwenhuizen Willem 
Published: July 2018

SummaryThe term “D-dimer assay” suggests, that these assays report the concentrations of the end-stage degradation product of crosslinked fibrin. This hardly occurs in patients. Degradation products of crosslinked fibrin rather occur with a wide range of molecular weights, and comprise various numbers of the D-dimer motif. Moreover, the numerical values obtained with different “D-dimer” assays vary widely. The variations are probably due to differences in reactivity of the various monoclonal antibodies used with the various D-dimer containing degradation products as they occur in patients; and to the various calibrators with a value assigned by the manufacturers. For the reasons indicated above a calibrator in the strict sense (e.g. pure D-dimer) is not feasible. This study shows that: it appears feasible to generate a conversion factor for each of the “D-dimer” assays studied, which will make the widely varying results obtained with these kits comparable; that the conversion factors can be based on a pool of real patient samples; and that the conversion factors are pool-independent.The next and final step in this study is to prepare and make available an international reference material for use by manufacturers and others facing a comparison problem. This is being carried out, in collaboration with the NIBSC (Dr. P. Gaffney), and the material is expected to be available in early 1997.
Cross-cultural literary translation strategies within a Maltese bilingual context
Authors: Grima Kenneth 
Published: July 2018

AbstractThe process of literary translation includes the source culture-specific elements that constitute an integral part of the source text. This paper aims to identify and analyse various translation strategic processes that could be adopted in translating cultural factors within the parameters of a Maltese bilingual, but not necessarily bicultural, context. Each of the suggested strategic procedures is presented in useful flow-chart formats, varying from source language/source culture to target language/target culture bias approach in order to keep cultural losses to a minimum whilst maximising cultural gains and, therefore, to make the transformation of the source text into the target text successful. Such flow-charts are aimed to provide the literary translator with a rapid means of achieving an adequate and satisfying suggested solution for a quality cross-cultural transposition of the cultural elements encountered within a bilingual context. In certain instances, it is also suggested that some strategies are used concurrently with others. To achieve this aim, an extended practical translation exercise by the author himself is used. This paper also helps to strengthen further both the level of research in narrative translation studies in general, and the research done in Maltese narrative literary translation from a cultural point of view.
Accurate multiple alignment of distantly related genome sequences using filtered spaced word matches as anchor points
Authors: Leimeister Chris-André , Dencker Thomas , Morgenstern Burkhard 
Published: July 2018

AbstractMotivationMost methods for pairwise and multiple genome alignment use fast local homology search tools to identify anchor points, i.e. high-scoring local alignments of the input sequences. Sequence segments between those anchor points are then aligned with slower, more sensitive methods. Finding suitable anchor points is therefore crucial for genome sequence comparison; speed and sensitivity of genome alignment depend on the underlying anchoring methods.ResultsIn this article, we use filtered spaced word matches to generate anchor points for genome alignment. For a given binary pattern representing match and don’t-care positions, we first search for spaced-word matches, i.e. ungapped local pairwise alignments with matching nucleotides at the match positions of the pattern and possible mismatches at the don’t-care positions. Those spaced-word matches that have similarity scores above some threshold value are then extended using a standard X-drop algorithm; the resulting local alignments are used as anchor points. To evaluate this approach, we used the popular multiple-genome-alignment pipeline Mugsy and replaced the exact word matches that Mugsy uses as anchor points with our spaced-word-based anchor points. For closely related genome sequences, the two anchoring procedures lead to multiple alignments of similar quality. For distantly related genomes, however, alignments calculated with our filtered-spaced-word matches are superior to alignments produced with the original Mugsy program where exact word matches are used to find anchor points.Availability and implementationhttp://spacedanchor.gobics.deSupplementary informationSupplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Effects of coronary revascularization on global coronary flow reserve in stable coronary artery disease
Authors: Aikawa Tadao , Naya Masanao , Obara Masahiko , Manabe Osamu , Magota Keiichi , Koyanagawa Kazuhiro , Asakawa Naoya , Ito Yoichi M , Shiga Tohru , Katoh Chietsugu , Anzai Toshihisa , Tsutsui Hiroyuki , Murthy Venkatesh L , Tamaki Nagara 
Published: July 2018

Abstract

Aims
Coronary flow reserve (CFR) is an integrated measure of the entire coronary vasculature, and is a powerful prognostic marker in coronary artery disease (CAD). The extent to which coronary revascularization can improve CFR is unclear. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) on CFR in patients with stable CAD.

Methods and results
In a prospective, multicentre observational study, CFR was measured by 15O-water positron emission tomography as the ratio of stress to rest myocardial blood flow at baseline and 6 months after optimal medical therapy (OMT) alone, PCI, or CABG. Changes in the SYNTAX and Leaman scores were angiographically evaluated as indicators of completeness of revascularization. Follow-up was completed by 75 (25 OMT alone, 28 PCI, and 22 CABG) out of 82 patients. The median SYNTAX and Leaman scores, and baseline CFR were 14.5 [interquartile range (IQR): 8–24.5], 5.5 (IQR: 2.5–12.5), and 1.94 (IQR: 1.67–2.66), respectively. Baseline CFR was negatively correlated with the SYNTAX (ρ = −0.40, P < 0.001) and Leaman scores (ρ = −0.33, P = 0.004). Overall, only CABG was associated with a significant increase in CFR [1.67 (IQR: 1.14–1.96) vs. 1.98 (IQR: 1.60–2.39), P < 0.001]. Among patients with CFR <2.0 (n = 41), CFR significantly increased in the PCI [1.70 (IQR: 1.42–1.79) vs. 2.21 (IQR: 1.78–2.49), P = 0.002, P < 0.001 for interaction between time and CFR] and CABG groups [1.28 (IQR: 1.13–1.80) vs. 1.86 (IQR: 1.57–2.22), P < 0.001]. The reduction in SYNTAX or Leaman scores after PCI or CABG was independently associated with the percent increase in CFR after adjusting for baseline characteristics (P = 0.012 and P = 0.011, respectively).

Conclusion
Coronary revascularization ameliorated reduced CFR in patients with obstructive CAD. The degree of improvement in angiographic CAD burden by revascularization was correlated with magnitude of improvement in CFR.
Disability and Work in British West Africa
Authors: Grischow Jeff 
Published: July 2018

Abstract
World War II significantly affected the development of disability programs in British West Africa during the late colonial period. Beginning in the early 1940s, Britain’s Colonial Office worked with the West African governors to develop rehabilitation programs for disabled African veterans. In Britain, rehabilitation for disabled veterans took the form of social orthopedics, which equated citizenship with the ability to work; British programs therefore prioritized reintegration into the workforce as the main goal of rehabilitation. The colonial programs attempted to transfer the social orthopedics program to Africa. The project failed because the African veterans did not want to be remade into productive workers on the Western/capitalist model. However, it did produce two lasting legacies: the creation of a network of Disabled People’s Organizations during the 1950s and 1960s, and the development of a successful onchocerciasis control program between 1974 and 2002.
Introduction
Authors: Rembis Michael , Kudlick Catherine , Nielsen Kim E. 
Published: July 2018

Abstract
Disability history has many strengths as well as aspects that require further investigation. The field of disability history is capacious, primarily because “disability” itself is difficult to define. Notions of disability change over time and vary from culture to culture. Yet, important commonalities exist. The twenty-seven chapters contained within the Handbook help to create a methodological and historiographic foundation for a field that, while it continues to evolve, is critical to explaining the human experience and holds tremendous import for other areas of historical study. The Handbook provides students and researchers at many levels with a well-informed basis from which to explore their own interests.
Disability in the Premodern Arab World
Authors: Scalenghe Sara 
Published: July 2018

Abstract
Arab Sunni Muslim discourses and experiences of physical and sensory impairments are surveyed from the rise of Islam in the seventh century until about 1800. The geographical focus of this discussion, which is primarily a function of the available scholarship, is Egypt and Greater Syria, the area that corresponds roughly to today’s Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel and the Palestinian territories. Impairments appear frequently in premodern Arabic writings, especially in literature, chronicles, biographies and autobiographies, legal texts, and medical compendia, leaving the reader with the impression that people with impairments were everywhere in the Arab world. Yet, to date only a handful of articles and two historical monographs about the Arab world are explicitly situated within the field of disability history. This chapter provides a new benchmark on which historians of disability working in the Arab world can build in future studies.
Designing Objects and Spaces
Authors: Williamson Bess 
Published: July 2018

Abstract
Design is a little-examined but significant factor in the history of disability, particularly in the context of the modern West. Both designers and users contributed to a history of design that sometimes ignored and sometimes addressed disability. For many modernist designers, the ideal of a “standard” or predictable body was key to a vision of an efficient industrial society, creating a world of objects and spaces that excluded or ignored disabled people. Nonetheless, people with disabilities engaged with design culture in distinctive ways, using and adapting mainstream designs to their own use. In the late twentieth century, the design world took up new goals of improving access, raising new questions about the intentions of designers and the role of users.
Timbral Thievery
Authors: De Souza Jonathan 
Published: July 2018

Abstract
Timbre often indexes an instrument’s materiality, and timbral variation often correlates with a player’s actions. Yet synthesizers complicate phenomenological links between sound and source. This chapter juxtaposes three instruments: an electromagnetic tuning-fork apparatus, developed by the nineteenth-century scientist Hermann von Helmholtz; the RCA Mark II, used by Milton Babbitt and other mid-twentieth-century composers; and the Yamaha GX-1, a large polyphonic synthesizer from the 1970s, played by Stevie Wonder and Keith Emerson. These synthesizers create new timbres and also imitate acoustic instruments, in a process that Robert Moog calls “timbral thievery.” Such imitations can provoke exaggerated or anxious discussions of synthetic and natural timbre. At the same time, performers may showcase the gap between timbre and instrument, exploiting a sense of uncanny or ambiguous sound sources for varied expressive ends. Ultimately, then, synthesizers help musicians both produce and conceptualize timbre.
The Sympathetic Nervous System and Pain
Authors: Strong Judith A. , Zhang Jun-Ming , Schaible Hans-Georg 
Published: July 2018

Abstract
This article reviews some of the preclinical studies of the sympathetic nervous system’s role in arthritis, inflammatory, and neuropathic pain, in light of the emerging understanding of how the immune system, sensory system, and sympathetic system markedly affect each other’s function, with many mechanisms besides sprouting. Many studies show a pro-inflammatory and pro-nociceptive role for the sympathetic nerves in preclinical models. However, these studies are sometimes conflicting, and the role of the sympathetic nerves can sometimes be anti-inflammatory or anti-nociceptive, particularly at later stages or when systemic effects on immune tissues are considered. The article discusses human correlates of these preclinical studies, as well as some possible reasons for the many conflicting studies in the literature. The article argues that sympathetic-based interventions for chronic pain conditions hold promise despite the conflicting findings in the field, especially if better ways to define appropriate subsets of patients can be developed.
Love, Value, and Reasons
Authors: Abramson Kate , Leite Adam 
Published: July 2018

Abstract
It is a familiar thought that in friendship and romance, people’s good qualities are reasons for loving them. This chapter clarifies the kinds of reasons—and the forms of reasons-responsiveness and evaluation—at issue. It offers a new model for understanding love as a form of valuing. On this model, love is both a response to reasons and a source of reasons, and the two sets of reasons are complementary parts of a single coherent, interlocking package. On this basis the chapter answers various standard objections alleging that the “qualities view” fails to tie us adequately to our loved ones. Love in friendship and romantic contexts is revealed to be a matter of character in many respects. Some of our most fundamental values are manifested in whom we love, why, and how. Small wonder loving is so important to our sense of ourselves as individuals.​
Medieval Ecclesiology and the Conciliar Movement
Authors: Tanner Norman 
Published: July 2018

Abstract
This chapter covers ecclesiology in the Western (or Catholic) church from the beginning of the schism between the churches of East and West—between Rome and Constantinople—in 1054 until the eve of the Reformation in 1517. Ecclesiology is taken to mean the nature or constitution of the church. The topic is considered from various standpoints: how it was viewed or taught by church officials, including the popes of the period, by councils, by theologians and other writers, and by the laity. Thereby the subject is treated from the standpoints of both the institutional church and the people of God, both ‘from above’ and ‘from below’. The chapter is divided chronologically into three periods: the Gregorian reform and its aftermath, from the mid-eleventh to the late twelfth century; the ‘long’ thirteenth century; the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries including the Avignon papacy, the conciliar movement, and the early Renaissance.