bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Updated epidemiological study of workers at two California petroleum refineries, 1950–95
Authors: Satin K P , Bailey W J , Newton K L , Ross A Y , Wong O 
Published: July 2002

Objectives: To further assess the potential role of occupational exposures on mortality, a second update of a cohort study of workers at two petroleum refineries in California was undertaken.Methods: Mortality analyses were based on standardised mortality ratios (SMRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) using the general population of California as a reference. Additional analyses of lymphatic and haematopoietic cancer deaths and diseases related to asbestos were undertaken.Results: The update consisted of 18 512 employees, who contributed 456 425 person-years of observation between 1950 and 1995. Both overall mortality and total cancer mortality were significantly lower than expected, as were several site specific cancers and non-malignant diseases. In particular, no significant increases were reported for leukaemia cell types or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Mortality excess from multiple myeloma was marginally significant. The excess was confined to employees enrolled before 1949. Furthermore, there was no significant upward trend based on duration of employment, which argues against a causal interpretation relative to employment or exposures at the refineries. No increase was found for diseases related to asbestos: pulmonary fibrosis; lung cancer; or malignant mesothelioma. There was no significant increase in mortality from any other cancers or non-malignant diseases.Conclusion: This second update provides additional reassurance that employment at these two refineries is not associated with increased risk of mortality.
The impact of hearing on communication
Authors: Fook Lisa , Morgan Rosemary , Sharma Priya , Adekoke Abel , Turnbull Christopher J 
Published: July 2002

Summary
The study was designed to assess the impact of hearing impairment on communication between older hospital patients and medical staff and to see whether intervention to improve hearing influences perceived communication. Structured interviews were held with 200 mentally alert elderly hospital in-patients before and after the introduction of voice amplifiers and acetate cards depicting a hearing problem. Prior to intervention 22% of patients rated communication with their doctor as poor or unsatisfactory. Following intervention there was a significant improvement (Chi-square p=0.006), with only 6% of patients reporting communication with their doctor as poor or unsatisfactory. Most of the patients who felt communication was unsatisfactory could not hear what was being said. We conclude that simple measures can improve the number of older patients hearing what their doctor says and improve their perception of communication with the hospital doctor.
Primary neuroleptospirosis
Authors: Panicker J N , Mammachan R , Jayakumar R V 
Published: July 2002

Abstract
Leptospirosis is an important zoonosis of worldwide distribution. It is uncommon for leptospirosis to present as a primary neurological disease. In this study of patients who presented with an acute neurological disease, and who were subsequently found to have leptospirosis, aseptic meningitis was the commonest manifestation. The other presentations were myeloradiculopathy, myelopathy, Guillain-Barré syndrome-like presentation, meningoencephalitis, intracerebral bleed, cerebellar dysfunction, iridocyclitis, and tremor/rigidity. Treatment consists of antibiotics, crystalline penicillin being the drug of choice, which reduces the course of illness if given early. The role of steroids is controversial. The prognosis after primary neuroleptospirosis is generally good but altered sensorium and seizures herald a worse prognosis.
Acute myocardial infarction in young adults: causes and management
Authors: Osula S , Bell G M , Hornung R S 
Published: July 2002

Abstract
The case report in this review illustrates an acute myocardial infarction in a young adult probably due to arterial thrombosis that can be attributed to a hypercoagulable state resulting from the nephrotic syndrome. Although rare, acute myocardial infarction should be considered in young adults presenting with chest pain. A detailed clinical history may help to identify the aetiology, and guide subsequent management, but diagnostic coronary angiography is essential. Careful risk factor modification and treatment of the underlying cause should reduce the incidence of recurrent cardiac events.
Plain abdominal radiographs in acute medical emergencies: an abused investigation?
Authors: Feyler S , Williamson V , King D 
Published: July 2002

Abstract
Plain abdominal radiographs are commonly requested for acute medical emergencies on patients with non-specific abdominal symptoms and signs. In this study 131 plain abdominal radiographs performed on the day of admission were prospectively analysed. In only 16 cases (12%) the reasons for requests conformed to the recommended guidelines by the Royal College of Radiologists. The reason for the request was stated in the case notes in only three cases. In 62 cases (47%), there was no comment made on the film by the requesting clinician. There was a discrepancy in the interpretation of the radiograph between the clinician and the radiologist in 31 cases (24%). The clinical management was influenced by plain abdominal radiographs in only nine cases (7%). The majority of plain abdominal radiographs requested on acute medical emergencies is inappropriate. There is a need to ensure guidelines are followed to prevent unnecessary exposure of patients to radiation as well as preventing expenditure on irrelevant investigations.
Breath analysis to detect recent exposure to carbon monoxide
Authors: Cunnington A J , Hormbrey P 
Published: July 2002

Abstract

Objectives
To determine the normal range for carbon monoxide concentrations in the exhaled breath of subjects in the emergency department and to develop a protocol for the use of a breath analyser to detect abnormal carbon monoxide exposure.

Methods
A hand held breath analyser was used to measure end expiratory carbon monoxide concentrations in 382 consenting subjects. Questionnaire data were collected to assess the effect of common sources of carbon monoxide exposure on breath carbon monoxide levels. Smokers were used as a carbon monoxide exposed group for comparison with non-smokers.

Results
The range of carbon monoxide concentrations obtained in the non-smoking group was 0–6 ppm and in the smoking group was 1–68 ppm. Smokers had a mean breath carbon monoxide concentration of 16.4 ppm and non-smokers had a mean of 1.26 ppm (95% confidence interval (CI) for difference 13.6 to 16.8 ppm). Male sex and frequent motor vehicle use were associated with slightly higher carbon monoxide concentrations (by 0.40, 95% CI 0.18 to 0.63 ppm, and 0.38, 95% CI 0.13 to 0.63 ppm, respectively) in the non-smoking group. Mean breath carbon monoxide concentrations increased in direct proportion to the number of cigarettes smoked (p&lt;0.001) and there was a negative correlation between carbon monoxide and time since last smoking a cigarette (p&lt;0.001). Altogether 23% of smokers had breath carbon monoxide concentrations in the range 1–6 ppm.

Conclusions
Breath analysis was rapid and results correlated well with carbon monoxide exposure. In this population subjects with breath carbon monoxide concentrations greater than 6 ppm should be assessed for the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. However even carbon monoxide concentrations less than 6 ppm do not exclude carbon monoxide poisoning within the last 24 hours.
A three year prospective audit of 212 presentations to the emergency department after electrical injury with a management protocol
Authors: Blackwell N , Hayllar J 
Published: July 2002

Abstract
Significant numbers of presentations to the emergency department were found to relate to low voltage electrical injury, for which there was no widely accepted management protocol. It was decided to examine the outcome of patients after low voltage electrical injury with particular reference to electrocardiogram (ECG) changes and to evaluate a protocol for managing these injuries in order to optimise the management of patients after electrical injury. A prospective observational study was done over three years of 212 consecutive presentations to the emergency department of Mount Isa Base Hospital with a four year follow up after implementation of the revised protocol. In 4% of patients, early transient conduction abnormalities were seen after low voltage electrical injury. Admissions for cardiac monitoring were reduced dramatically with no resultant ill effects. Asymptomatic patients with a normal ECG on presentation do not need ECG monitoring after low voltage electrical injury. Patients with significant symptoms or ECG changes should be admitted for monitoring and observation. In view of the high proportion of workplace related injuries occupational health measures such as “triple gloving” should be mandatory for high risk groups.
Knowledge of aspects of acute care in trainee doctors
Authors: Smith G B , Poplett N 
Published: July 2002

Abstract
Deficiencies in trainees’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes have the potential to influence the initial assessment, treatment, and outcome of acutely ill ward patients. Knowledge of basic aspects of acute care were assessed among a group of 185 trainee doctors at six hospitals. Many were unaware of the signs of total airway obstruction, confusing them with those of partial obstruction (pre-registration house officers (PRHOs) 11%, senior house officers (SHOs) 14%) or apnoea (PRHOs 47%, SHOs 26%). Knowledge about the use of non-rebreathing oxygen masks was poor; 23% of trainees could not describe the purpose of the reservoir bag or gave answers that were unclear or incorrect. Seven trainees thought that it was involved in humidification, or carbon dioxide collection or removal. Seventeen per cent of trainees could not quote the maximum deliverable inspired oxygen concentration provided by these masks or gave values below the normal range. Thirty one per cent of trainees thought that the lower end of the normal range for pulse oximetry (SpO2) was below 95%; nine (5%) believed it to be below 90%. There was also poor knowledge of the factors influencing the function of a pulse oximeter. Similar deficits in knowledge and understanding existed in relation to the normal capillary refill time, minimum hourly urine output, the use of the AVPU scale and the role of blood glucose testing in unconscious adults. Only 22% of PRHOs and 21% of SHOs identified the correct percentage hospital survival for patients who suffer an in-hospital cardiac arrest. Knowledge of aspects of consent was unsatisfactory. It is recommended that all medical schools urgently incorporate training about common aspects of “generic” acute care in their curricula.
Monitoring distributed systems
Authors: Joyce Jeffrey , Lomow Greg , Slind Konrad , Unger Brian 
Published: July 2002

The monitoring of distributed systems involves the collection, interpretation, and display of information concerning the interactions among concurrently executing processes. This information and its display can support the debugging, testing, performance evaluation, and dynamic documentation of distributed systems. General problems associated with monitoring are outlined in this paper, and the architecture of a general purpose, extensible, distributed monitoring system is presented. Three approaches to the display of process interactions are described: textual traces, animated graphical traces, and a combination of aspects of the textual and graphical approaches. The roles that each of these approaches fulfill in monitoring and debugging distributed systems are identified and compared. Monitoring tools for collecting communication statistics, detecting deadlock, controlling the non-deterministic execution of distributed systems, and for using protocol specifications in monitoring are also described.
Our discussion is based on experience in the development and use of a monitoring system within a distributed programming environment called Jade. Jade was developed within the Computer Science Department of the University of Calgary and is now being used to support teaching and research at a number of university and research organizations.
The cost of selective recompilation and environment processing
Authors: Adams Rolf , Tichy Walter , Weinert Annette 
Published: July 2002

When a single software module in a large system is modified, a potentially large number of other modules may have to be recompiled. By reducing both the number of compilations and the amount of input processed by each compilation run, the turnaround time after changes can be reduced significantly.Potential time savings are measured in a medium-sized, industrial software project over a three-year period. The results indicate that a large number of compilations caused by traditional compilation unit dependencies may be redundant. On the available data, a mechanism that compares compiler output saves about 25 percent, smart recompilation saves 50 percent, and smartest recompilation may save up to 80 percent of compilation work.Furthermore, all compilation methods other than smartest recompilation process large amounts of unused environment data. In the project analyzed, the average environment symbols are actually used. Reading only the actually used symbols would reduce total compiler input by about 50 percent.Combining smart recompilation with a reduction in environment processing might double to triple perceived compilation speed and double linker speed, without sacrificing static type safety.
Visualizing quaternion rotation
Authors: Hart John C. , Francis George K. , Kauffman Louis H. 
Published: July 2002

Quaternions play a vital role in the representation of rotations in computer graphics, primarily for animation and user interfaces. Unfortunately, quaternion rotation is often left as an advanced topic in computer graphics education due to difficulties in portraying the four-dimensional space of the quaternions. One tool for overcoming these obstacles is the quaternion demonstrator, a physical visual aid consisting primarily of a belt. Every quaternion used to specify a rotation can be represented by fixing one end of the belt and rotating the other. Multiplication of quaternions is demonstrated by the composition of rotations, and the resulting twists in the belt depict visually how quaternions interpolate rotation.
This article introduces to computer graphics the exponential notation that mathematicians have used to represent unit quaternions. Exponential notation combines the angle and axis of the rotation into concise quaternion expression. This notation allows the article to present more clearly a mechanical quaternion demonstrator consisting of a ribbon and a tag, and develop a computer simulation suitable for interactive educational packages. Local deformations and the belt trick are used to minimize the ribbon's twisting and simulate a natural-appearing interactive quaternion demonstrator.
Logical, internal, and physical reference behavior in CODASYL database systems
Authors: Effelsberg Wolfgang , Loomis Mary E. S. 
Published: July 2002

This work investigates one aspect of the performance of CODASYL database systems: the data reference behavior. We introduce a model of database traversals at three levels: the logical, internal, and physical levels. The mapping between the logical and internal levels is defined by the internal schema, whereas the mapping between the internal and the physical levels depends on cluster properties of the database. Our model explains the physical reference behavior for a given sequence of DML statements at the logical level.
Software has been implemented to monitor references in two selected CODASYL DBMS applications. In a series of experiments the physical reference behavior was observed for varying internal schemas and cluster properties of the database. The measurements were limited to retrieval transactions, so that a variety of queries could be analyzed for the same well-known state of the database. Also, all databases were relatively small in order to allow fast reloading with varying internal schema parameters. In all cases, the database transactions showed less locality of reference than do programs under virtual memory operating systems; some databases showed no locality at all. No evidence of physical sequentiality was found. This suggests that standard page replacement strategies are not optimal for CODASYL database buffer management; instead, replacement decisions in a database buffer should be based on specific knowledge available from higher system layers.
Design of a LISP-based microprocessor
Authors: Steele Guy Lewis , Sussman Gerald Jay 
Published: July 2002

We present a design for a class of computers whose “instruction sets” are based on LISP. LISP, like traditional stored-program machine languages and unlike most high-level languages, conceptually stores programs and data in the same way and explicitly allows programs to be manipulated as data, and so is a suitable basis for a stored-program computer architecture. LISP differs from traditional machine languages in that the program/data storage is conceptually an unordered set of linked record structures of various sizes, rather than an ordered, indexable vector of integers or bit fields of fixed size. An instruction set can be designed for programs expressed as trees of record structures. A processor can interpret these program trees in a recursive fashion and provide automatic storage management for the record structures.
We discuss a small-scale prototype VLSI microprocessor which has been designed and fabricated, containing a sufficiently complete instruction interpreter to execute small programs and a rudimentary storage allocator.
Sentence paraphrasing from a conceptual base
Authors: Goldman Neil M. 
Published: July 2002

A model of natural language generation based on an underlying language-free representation of meaning is described. A program based on this model is able to produce sentence paraphrases which demonstrate understanding with respect to a given context. This generator operates in conjunction with a natural language analyzer and a combined memory and inference model. In generating sentences from meaning structures, the program employs both the information retrieval and deduction capabilities of the memory model.
The model encompasses several diverse classes of linguistic knowledge, which include: (1) executable tests of conceptual properties stored in discrimination nets; (2) information relating conceptual to syntactic roles, stored in a word-sense dictionary, and (3) surface grammatical knowledge, stored in a formal grammar.
A program to teach programming
Authors: Fenichel Robert R. , Weizenbaum Joseph , Yochelson Jerome C. 
Published: July 2002

The TEACH system was developed at MIT to ease the cost and improve the results of elementary instruction in programming. To the student, TEACH offers loosely guided experience with a conversational language which was designed with teaching in mind. Faculty involvement is minimal.
A term of experience with TEACH is discussed. Pedagogically, the system appears to be successful; straighforward reimplementation will make it economically successful as well.
Similar programs of profound tutorial skill will appear only as the results of extended research. The outlines of this research are beginning to become clear.
On the automatic simplification of source-language programs
Authors: Clark Ellen R. 
Published: July 2002

Methods of simplification that can be applied automatically to programs written in an ALGOL-like language are discussed. The simplifications are based on the form of the program and the knowledge obtained by a processor, without any understanding of what the program is supposed to do. These methods have been implemented in a processor called SURE that accepts a program written in JOVIAL and outputs an equivalent JOVIAL program that may be shorter and may be executed faster than the original.
SURE is described, some of the problems encountered in automatic improvement at the source-language level are discussed, and further types of automatic program improvement are suggested.
Locking performance in centralized databases
Authors: Tay Y. C. , Goodman Nathan , Suri R. 
Published: July 2002

An analytic model is used to study the performance of dynamic locking. The analysis uses only the steady-state average values of the variables. The solution to the model is given by a cubic, which has exactly one valid root for the range of parametric values that is of interest. The model's predictions agree well with simulation results for transactions that require up to twenty locks. The model separates data contention from resource contention, thus facilitating an analysis of their separate effects and their interaction. It shows that systems with a particular form of nonuniform access, or with shared locks, are equivalent to systems with uniform access and only exclusive locks.
Blocking due to conflicts is found to impose an upper bound on transaction throughput; this fact leads to a rule of thumb on how much data contention should be permitted in a system. Throughput can exceed this bound if a transaction is restarted whenever it encounters a conflict, provided restart costs and resource contention are low. It can also be exceeded by making transactions predeclare their locks. Raising the multiprogramming level to increase throughput also raises the number of restarts per completion. Transactions should minimize their lock requests, because data contention is proportional to the square of the number of requests. The choice of how much data to lock at a time depends on which part of a general granularity curve the system sees.
UIO: a uniform I/O system interface for distributed systems
Authors: Cheriton David R. 
Published: July 2002

A uniform I/O interface allows programs to be written relatively independently of specific I/O services and yet work with a wide variety of the I/O services available in a distributed environment. Ideally, the interface provides this uniform access without excessive complexity in the interface or loss of performance. However, a uniform interface does not arise from careful design of individual system interfaces alone; it requires explicit definition.In this paper, the UIO (uniform I/O) system interface that has been used for the past five years in the V distributed operating system is described, with the focus on the key design issues. This interface provides several extensions beyond the I/O interface of UNIX™, including support for record I/O, locking, atomic transactions, and replication, as well as attributes that indicate whether optional semantics and operations are available. Experience in using and implementing this interface with a variety of different I/O services is described, along with the performance of both local and network I/O. It is concluded that the UIO interface provides a uniform I/O system interface with significant functionality, wide applicability, and no significant performance penalty.