bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Management of Postoperative Neurosurgical Patients
Authors: Panda Nidhi B. , Mahajan Shalvi , Chauhan Rajeev 
Published: June 2019

AbstractNeurosurgical patients are a special subset of patients requiring postoperative care. Challenging neurosurgical disease processes, advanced surgical techniques, and unique individual patient requirements advocate the need for meticulous postoperative care to ensure safe transition toward recovery. Timely detection of systemic and neurological changes allows early diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. The mainstay of postoperative care revolves around airway, maintenance of hemodynamics, sedation, analgesia, nutrition, fluid management, and management of disease-specific complications. In addition to standard monitoring, multimodal neuromonitoring should be used in neurosurgical patients. Hence, four key elements in the postoperative management of neurosurgical patients involve profound insight, rapid response, good communication skills, and team collaboration.
Topical Use of Tranexamic Acid in Cardiac Surgery: A Meta-Analysis
Authors: Habbab Louay M. , Semelhago Lloyd , Lamy André 
Published: June 2019

Abstract
Background This meta-analysis was conducted to investigate the evidence for the efficacy and safety of intrapericardial tranexamic acid (TXA) in cardiac surgery.
Methods We searched MEDLINE from 2000 to 2017 for randomized controlled trials that compared intrapericardial TXA to placebo. We performed a meta-analysis for the eligible trials that focused on chest tube drainage measured during the first 24 hours after surgery as a primary outcome. We also examined the secondary outcome measures of these trials such as the incidence of transfusion requirements following surgery and the evidence for any increase in complication rates.
Results A total of seven randomized controlled trials (six on-pump and one off-pump) comparing topical application of TXA to placebo in 692 patients were eligible for the blood loss outcome data. These trials randomized 372 patients to receive TXA and 320 patients as controls. The use of intrapericardial TXA was associated with a considerable reduction in 24-hour blood loss in all seven studies and a weighted mean difference of −343.56 mL (95% confidence interval: −316.41, −370.72) significantly differed from zero (p = 0.005) with a heterogeneity of I
2 = 0%. The incidence of packed RBC transfusion in TXA patients was significantly lower in one study and was not significant but with trend in favor of TXA in five out of the six studies in which it was reported. In one trial, TXA was not detected in any patient and in another the studied groups were similar in postoperative complications, such as graft patency, myocardial infarction, cerebral infarction, atrial fibrillation, seizures, and infections.
Conclusions Findings from this meta-analysis suggest that intrapericardial use of TXA in patients undergoing cardiac surgery can decrease postoperative bleeding without increasing the risk of postoperative seizures. Future large randomized, double-blind, controlled clinical trials are needed to confirm these promising findings.
Reporting Practices on Immunosuppression and Rejection Management in Face Transplantation: A Systematic Review
Authors: Daneshgaran Giulia , Stern Carrie S. , Garfein Evan S. 
Published: June 2019

Background Face transplantation is a demanding operation requiring complex planning and expert technical performance. While the documentation of successes of the first transplants is impressive, there are lacunae in reporting of institutional protocols for other critical operation components, namely, immunosuppression, graft surveillance, and management of rejection and graft failure. The purpose of this review is to assess protocol reporting by face transplant teams to determine where we, as a plastic surgery community, can improve.
Methods A systematic review of PubMed was conducted to identify literature on face transplants published from November, 2005, starting with the first successful transplant to December, 2018. English-language articles were reviewed for reporting of protocols on antimicrobial prophylaxis, immunosuppression, graft surveillance, and management of rejection and graft failure.
Results A total of 44 face transplantation patients were identified. Protocols for antimicrobial prophylaxis, immunosuppressive induction, and maintenance immunosuppression were reported for 61%, 75%, and 73% of patients, respectively. Protocols for graft surveillance and medical management of rejection were reported for 70% of patients in both cases. Surgical salvage strategies to manage graft failure were documented for 43% of patients.
Conclusion The current literature on face transplantation does not include consistent reporting on critical aspects of patient care. Medical protocols outlining guidelines for immunosuppression, graft surveillance, and management of rejection and graft failure are the most critical factors determining overall transplant success. However, they are underreported in the literature. Development and communication of standardized protocols is essential to improve patient outcomes and maximize the results of this procedure.
Testosterone is Key to Increase the Muscle Capillary Density of Old and Trained Rats
Authors: Krause Neto Walter , Silva Wellington de Assis , Silva Amanda dos Santos da , Ciena Adriano Polican , Souza Romeu Rodrigues de , Carbone Patricia Oliva , Anaruma Carlos Alberto , Gama Eliane Florencio 
Published: June 2019

Introduction It is indicated that aging reduces muscular vascularity. Thus, strategies that aim to reverse or decrease the progression of these changes are suggested. Therefore, the present study aimed to analyze the blood capillary density of the plantaris muscle (PL) of aged rats submitted to strength training and exogenous testosterone use.
Methods A total of 30 rats were divided equally into the following groups: EA: 20 months old; OLD: 24 months old; OLD + S: testosterone; ST: strength training; and ST + S: strength training + testosterone. Strength training was performed 3 times a week for 15 weeks. Testosterone administration was performed by the intraperitoneal method 2 times a week at a dose of 10mg/kg. All of the morphological parameters were analyzed using morphoquantitative techniques.
Results A significant increase in the capillaries numerical density of the OLD + S and ST + S groups. The OLD + S and ST + S groups demonstrated a higher ratio of capillaries per myofiber than the EA, OLD and ST groups. The OLD and ST groups had a higher ratio than the EA group. The OLD + S, ST and ST + S groups presented a statistically significant increase in the cross-sectional area in the type I fibers when compared with the EA and OLD groups. However, the ST group showed a significant increase compared with the OLD group. In type II fibers, the ST and ST + S groups showed a greater cross-sectional area than the EA group. As for the mean cross-sectional area, the ST and ST + S groups presented significantly larger areas than the other groups.
Conclusion Anabolic steroid administration is crucial to increase the blood capillary density of the plantaris muscle of old rats, independently of the effects of strength training.
Phase Contrast MRI Suggests an Internal Carotid Vascular Tone Alteration in Migraines
Authors: Deverdun Jeremy , Leboucq Nicolas , Pfeuffer Josef , Rivier François , Bousquet Elisa , Benali Amel , Le Bars Emmanuelle 
Published: June 2019

Introduction Migraine is the most common neurological disorder and the third most common disease worldwide. However, the underlying mechanisms contributing to its development are not completely understood. Symptoms may arise from a combination of dilation-independent vascular events and neurogenic mechanisms interacting throughout the brain and within the trigeminovascular system in the meninges
Materials and method We report here a case of a patient with a suspected familial hemiplegic migraine who presented an increased recurrence of events from one per month to one every other day. Three magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) acquisitions were performed after the appearance of a strong crisis which included a paresthesia and aphasia along with headaches. Two MRIs were performed close to the crisis, while the last one was done 1 month later.
Results During the crisis, cerebral perfusion exhibits incoherent results. Blood velocity measurements highlight a strong phase lag between left internal carotid artery (ICA) and basilar artery and more importantly right ICA. After a month, parameters came back to standard values.
Conclusion The transitory nature of the observed modifications suggests a reversible alteration of the vascular tone of the ICA in patients with migraine. This alteration seems to follow recovery pattern of the patient.
Outcome and Feasibility after 7 Years of Therapeutic Hypothermia in Southern Brazil
Authors: Procianoy Renato S. , Corso Andrea L. , Schoenardie Bruna O. , de Oliveira Georgia P.F. , Longo Maria G. , Silveira Rita C. 
Published: June 2019

Objective This study aimed to describe the experience with a protocol of therapeutic hypothermia (TH) in southern Brazil.
Study Design Newborns with gestational age > 35 weeks with evidence of perinatal asphyxia plus moderate or severe encephalopathy were recruited between March 2011 and November 2017. Whole-body hypothermia for 72 hours, starting within the first 6 hours of life was used. Survivors underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electroencephalogram (EEG). The primary outcome was death during hospitalization and neurodevelopment assessed using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development III (BSID III) at 12 months of age.
Results A total of 72 newborns were treated (41 with moderate encephalopathy and 31 with severe encephalopathy), of whom 16 died. MRI was performed in 56 patients, and 24 presented some alterations. Fifty-three patients had an EEG: 11 normal, 20 mildly altered, 12 moderately altered, and 10 severely altered. Forty patients were evaluated through BSID III: 45% presented with some delay in neurodevelopment, 8 (20%) had motor retardation, 15 (37.5%) had language delay, and 13 (32.5%) had a delay in cognitive development.
Conclusion Mortality and adverse events were similar to those described in large randomized controlled trials. TH is a safe and an effective method of neurologic protection in asphyxiated newborns in a developing country when performed adequately.
Evaluating Relationships between Visceral Fat Measures and Adipokines Concentrations among Women with a History of Preeclampsia
Authors: Chandrasekaran Suchitra , Barry Darcy , Melhorn Susan , Easterling Thomas , Gammill Hilary , Schur Ellen 
Published: June 2019

AbstractObjective We sought to evaluate associations between postpartum plasma adipokine concentrations among women with a history of preeclampsia (PE) without severe features (MPE), PE with severe features (SPE), and no PE (NPE). We also investigated relationships between adipokines and computed tomography (CT)-quantified measures of visceral fat (VF) area (VFA) and subcutaneous fat area (SCFA).Study Design We performed a secondary analysis of data collected as part of a previously performed cross-sectional study at our institution. Women with and without a history of PE were recruited in 10 years after delivery. VFA and SCFA measures were performed by CT scan. Anthropometric data and peripheral blood samples from subjects were collected concurrently.Results Plasma adiponectin concentrations (µg/mL) were significantly lower among MPE (18.5 ± 7.1) compared with NPE (27.3 ± 13.8) and SPE (25.7 ± 9.6). Leptin (p = 0.32) and resistin (p = 0.93) concentrations were similar among the groups. Adiponectin concentrations more closely aligned with VFA (β = −0.001, p = 0.03), while resistin concentrations trended toward correlating with SCFA (β = 0.02, p = 0.05). Leptin was not preferential to VFA or SCFA.Conclusion VF distribution may contribute to the variation in PE phenotype. Adiponectin specifically may be a promising marker representing VFA.
Segmentation into intonational periods
Authors: Lacheret-Dujour Anne , Victorri Bernard 
Published: June 2019

Abstract
This chapter focuses on the processing of the major prosodic unit, called intonational period, in Rhapsodie. We explain why the grammatical concept of sentence cannot be taken as a reference for the segmentation of unelicited speech into major prosodic units. Rather we show that in order to segment an utterance into major prosodic units in the context of an emergent data-driven approach, it is necessary to highlight accurate acoustic cues that produce perceptual effects of demarcation between two units. First, we present the Analor model developed to segment discourse into intonational periods, in particular the different parameters selected for segmentation, and how they interact. Second, we illustrate the choices made to process fillers, disfluencies, and also to resolve problems of segmentation derived from overlaps and backchannels in dialogic samples.
From pitch stylization to automatic tonal annotation of speech corpora
Authors: Mertens Piet 
Published: June 2019

Abstract
This chapter proposes a labeling scheme for pitch-related aspects of speech prosody and describes an automatic annotation system using this scheme.
In the labelling scheme, the fine-grained transcription provides labels indicating the pitch level and pitch movement of individual syllables. The pitch levels “bottom” and “top” indicate the boundaries of the speaker’s pitch range. Three additional levels – “low”, “mid”, “high” – are defined on the basis of pitch changes in the local context. For pitch movements, both simple and compound, the transcription indicates direction (rise, fall, level) and size (large and small melodic intervals), using size categories adjusted to the speaker’s pitch range.
The automatic tonal annotation system combines several processing steps: segmentation into syllabic nuclei, pause detection, pitch stylization, pitch range estimation, pitch movement classification, and pitch level assignment. It uses a rule-based procedure, which unlike commonly used supervized learning techniques does not require a labelled corpus to train the model.
Exploration of the Rhapsodie corpus
Authors: Lacheret-Dujour Anne , Kahane Sylvain , Bawden Rachel , Fleury Serge , Wang Ilaine 
Published: June 2019

Abstract
This chapter describes the data structure of the Rhapsodie Treebank and discusses methodological issues stemming from the complexity of this structure, articulated around three independent, non-aligned, hierarchies: Microsyntactic, macrosyntactic and prosodic, and the challenging questions to be resolved in this context. It discusses the specific problems posed by the simultaneous processing of the phonological stream (prosodic level) and the orthographic stream (syntactic level), which are often far from being isomorphic in French, and the related problem of the processing of disfluent and/or overlapped strings, which have not the same representation in the syntactic and the prosodic hierarchy. Then, it presents the formats adopted to encode prosodic and syntactic annotations and query them simultaneously, given that the prosodic architecture is a non-recursive time-aligned representation while the syntactic one is a recursive tree-based representation.
Validation of the tail replacement method in MTF calculations using the homogeneous and non-homogeneous edges of a phantom
Authors: Anam C , Budi WS , Fujibuchi T , Haryanto F , Dougherty G 
Published: June 2019

Abstract
We validated the tail replacement technique in the modulation transfer function (MTF) calculation of CT images using edges of homogeneous and non-homogeneous phantom using an automated method. The algorithm for the automated MTF calculation consists of several steps. The upper edge of the phantom was detected from its axial image and pixel values was taken to create an edge spread function (ESF). The left tail of the ESF was flipped horizontally to replace the right tail. Differentiating the ESF produced a line spread function (LSF) which was Fourier transformed to produce the MTF. To validate the result for the non-homogeneous phantom was compared with that for a homogeneous phantom. Results showed that in the homogeneous module, the MTF curve generated without tail replacement corresponded to its shape in use. However for the non-homogeneous module, the MTF obtained without tail replacement differed considerably from its shape in use. The 50% value of MTF (MTF-50) without tail replacement was 0.44 cycles/mm compared to 0.33 cycles/mm in use. Using the tail replacement, the MTFs in the homogeneous and non-homogeneous modules were comparable, with MTF-50 values of 0.33 cycles/mm for both. In summary, the MTF cannot be conventionally measured from the edge of the non-homogeneous module, but it can be resolved using the tail replacement technique on the ESF curve.
Resting-state fMRI: comparing default mode network connectivity between normal and low auditory working memory groups
Authors: Othman E A , Yusoff A N , Mohamad M , Abdul Manan H , Abd Hamid A I , Dzulkifli M A , Osman S S , Wan Burhanuddin W I D 
Published: June 2019

AbstractThe relationship between resting effective connectivity (EC) among default mode network (DMN) regions and auditory working memory (AWM) performance is still poorly understood. In this work, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) was used to determine the optimum connectivity model between posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in 40 healthy male volunteers. in low and normal working memory groups of subjects. Correlation between EC with AWM performance and AWM-capacity was also studied. The participants were divided into two groups which are normal and low AWM-capacity groups based on Malay Version Auditory Verbal Learning Test. The AWM performance was assessed using a word-based backward recall task. Both assessments were conducted outside the MRI scanner. The participants were scanned using a 3-T MRI system and the data were analyzed using statistical parametric mapping (SPM12) and spectral Dynamic Causal Modelling (spDCM). Results revealed that PCC and mPFC were significantly interconnected in both groups. Group analyses showed that the connection between PCC and mPFC exhibits an anti-correlated network. The results also indicated that the AWM performance and AWM-capacity were not associated with EC. These findings suggest that EC at rest between the two regions may not significantly influence cognitive abilities important for this AWM task.
Optimization of digital radiography system using in-house phantom: preliminary study
Authors: Hariyati I , Hani A D F , Craig L A , Lestariningsih I , Lubis L E , Soejoko D S 
Published: June 2019

Abstract
The purpose of this study was to obtain information on optimum exposure parameter combination on simulated thorax and abdomen examinations using Direct-Digital Radiography (DR) and Computed Radiography (CR) systems. An in-house phantom dedicated for quick QC was utilized as an image quality quantification tool in term of contrast. The optimization was performed on Philips Essenta DR, CR Fuji Profect CS, and CR Agfa 10-X. Exposures were performed using corresponding clinical setting with combinations of kVp, mAs, filters, and a variation of simulated patient thicknesses. The Figure of Merit (FOM) was employed as optimization parameter, calculated as ratio of squared Signal Difference to Noise Ratio (SDNR) and surface dose for every measurement. The image quality was evaluated using Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) and Contrast Consistency (CV). Based on FOM, MTF, and CV calculations, acquisitions optimization for thorax examination using DR was obtained on 55-63 kVp, 5-8 mAs, with additional filter 1 mm Al + 0.1 mm Cu. For abdomen examination, the optimized results were 81-102 kVp, 8-12.5 mAs, with additional filters 1 mm Al+0.1 mm Cu and 1 mm Al+0.2 mm Cu. On the other hand, the optimized results using CR on thorax examination were on the range of 55-63 kV, 4-8 mAs, also with the same additional filters with DR. The results of optimization of abdomen examination were on the range of 85-102 kV, 8-20 mAs, and again with the same additional filters. This gave information that different receptors used on the same x-ray unit produced almost similar optimization conditions.
Using in-house quick-QC phantom to characterize computed and direct digital radiography: a preliminary study
Authors: Rahman I N F , Fajar M I , Aini N , Febrianti R H , Lestariningsih I , Gani M R A , Lubis L E , Soejoko D S 
Published: June 2019

Abstract
In this study, two CR receptors (Agfa CR-85X and Agfa CR-10X) and two DDR receptors (Brivo DR-F and Essenta) were characterized in terms of detector sensitivity and image quality. An in-house phantom was specially designed to accommodate image quality assessment for quick QC and is tested as a purpose of this study. The reference quantitative aspect that were used to characterize the imaging units are the correlation between Pixel Value and image receptor dose, whereas evaluation of image quality based on the modules on the in-house phantom uses new proposed metrics (coefficient of linearity, CL, and coefficient of variance, CV). Each system’s unique Pixel Value-dose characteristics are also expressed in the results of the in-house phantom’s metrics (i.e. CL and CV). In addition, the constancy of measured modulation transfer function suggests potential use for system quality judgment. As all characterizations (Pixel Value-dose characteristics, MTF, and new metrics) indicated on unique result for each systems, the study implies that the designed in-house phantom as well as its proposed metric can be promising to be used to characterize digital radiography systems during quick QC.
Factors affecting standardized uptake value of 99mTc-MDP bone SPECT/CT: A phantom study
Authors: Myint TT , Ekjeen T , Chaichana A , Tipparoj R , Wiyaporn K 
Published: June 2019

Abstract
Currently, state-of-the-art SPECT/CT with 3D reconstruction allows for quantitative data that can be represented as standardized uptake value (SUV). However, there are a number of factors that affect the value. The goal of this study was to investigate the factors affecting SUV of 99mTc-MDP bone SPECT/CT. A NEMA phantom with 99mTc-MDP background activity concentration of 18 kBq/ml and tumor to background ratio of 4:1 were studied. The data were acquired based on clinical bone SPECT/CT imaging protocol and OS-EM algorithm with compensation for attenuation, scatter and resolution recovery was applied using 10 subsets and varying iterative numbers from 1 to 5. SUVs (SUVmean and SUVmax) were measured for each sphere using Q.Metrix software. Moreover, three cut-off frequencies of Butterworth filter including 0.35, 0.48 and 0.65 cycle/cm with order of 10 were investigated at 20 iterative updates. The percentage of difference of both SUVs for each sphere was calculated. Both SUVs tended to increase when the iterative update of the OS-EM and cut-off frequency of Butterworth filter were increased. Measurement of SUVs from SPECT/CT is feasible. However, the iterative update, cut-off frequency and sphere size can affect both SUVs.