bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A randomised clinical trial of the efficacy of drop squats or leg extension/leg curl exercises to treat clinically diagnosed jumper's knee in athletes: pilot study
Authors: Cannell L J , Taunton J E , Clement D B , Smith C , Khan K M 
Published: July 2002

Objectives—To compare the therapeutic effect of two different exercise protocols in athletes with jumper's knee.Methods—Randomised clinical trial comparing a 12 week programme of either drop squat exercises or leg extension/leg curl exercises. Measurement was performed at baseline and after six and 12 weeks. Primary outcome measures were pain (visual analogue scale 1–10) and return to sport. Secondary outcome measures included quadriceps and hamstring moment of force using a Cybex II isokinetic dynamometer at 30°/second. Differences in pain response between the drop squat and leg extension/curl treatment groups were assessed by 2 (group) × 3 (time) analysis of variance. Two by two contingency tables were used to test differences in rates of return to sport. Analysis of variance (2 (injured versus non-injured leg) × 2 (group) × 3 (time)) was also used to determine differences for secondary outcome measures.Results—Over the 12 week intervention, pain diminished by 2.3 points (36%) in the leg extension/curl group and 3.2 points (57%) in the squat group. There was a significant main effect of both exercise protocols on pain (p<0.01) with no interaction effect. Nine of 10 subjects in the drop squat group returned to sporting activity by 12 weeks, but five of those subjects still had low level pain. Six of nine of the leg extension/curl group returned to sporting activity by 12 weeks and four patients had low level pain. There was no significant difference between groups in numbers returning to sporting activity. There were no differences in the change in quadriceps or hamstring muscle moment of force between groups.Conclusions—Progressive drop squats and leg extension/curl exercises can reduce the pain of jumper's knee in a 12 week period and permit a high proportion of patients to return to sport. Not all patients, however, return to sport by that time.
Warm up practices of golfers: are they adequate?: Table 1
Authors: Fradkin A J , Finch C F , Sherman C A 
Published: July 2002

Background—Although it is widely recommended that golfers warm up before play or practice to enhance their physical performance and reduce their injury risk, it is not known to what extent they actually undertake such warm up procedures.Objective—To collect information about the proportion of golfers who actively warm up and to determine the types of warm up behaviours.Methods—This study was conducted over three weeks at three different golfing venues: a private golf course, a public golf course, and a golf driving range. Golfers' warm up behaviours, defined as any form of preparative exercise, were recorded by direct observation by two independent observers.Results—The sample consisted of 1040 amateur golfers (852 men and 188 women) aged at least 18 years. Only 54.3% (95% confidence interval 49.8 to 58.8) performed some form of warm up activity. Air swings on the tee were the most commonly observed warm up activity, with 88.7% (95% confidence interval 85.9 to 91.5) of golfers who warmed up performing these.Conclusions—Only a small proportion of amateur golfers perform appropriate warm up exercises. To improve on this, golfers should be educated about the possible benefits of warming up and be shown how to perform an appropriate warm up routine.
Role of mast cells in chronic stress induced colonic epithelial barrier dysfunction in the rat
Authors: Santos J , Yang P-C , Söderholm J D , Benjamin M , Perdue M H 
Published: July 2002

BACKGROUND AND AIMSStress may be an important factor in exacerbating inflammatory bowel disease but the underlying mechanism is unclear. Defective epithelial barrier function may allow uptake of luminal antigens that stimulate an immune/inflammatory response. Here, we examined the effect of chronic stress on colonic permeability and the participation of mast cells in this response.METHODSMast cell deficient Ws/Ws rats and +/+ littermate controls were submitted to water avoidance stress or sham stress (one hour/day) for five days. Colonic epithelial permeability to a model macromolecular antigen, horseradish peroxidase, was measured in Ussing chambers. Epithelial and mast cell morphology was studied by light and electron microscopy.RESULTSChronic stress significantly increased macromolecular flux and caused epithelial mitochondrial swelling in +/+ rats, but not in Ws/Ws rats, compared with non-stressed controls. Stress increased the number of mucosal mast cells and the proportion of cells showing signs of activation in +/+ rats. No mast cells or ultrastructural abnormalities of the epithelium were present in Ws/Ws rats. Increased permeability in +/+ rats persisted for 72 hours after stress cessation.CONCLUSIONSChronic stress causes an epithelial barrier defect and epithelial mitochondrial damage, in parallel with mucosal mast cell hyperplasia and activation. The study provides further support for an important role for mast cells in stress induced colonic mucosal pathophysiology.
Response to a behavioural treatment, biofeedback, in constipated patients is associated with improved gut transit and autonomic innervation
Authors: Emmanuel A V , Kamm M A 
Published: July 2002

BACKGROUNDAlthough behavioural treatment (biofeedback) successfully treats the pelvic floor abnormalities in patients with idiopathic constipation, many patients also normalise their impaired bowel frequency. We postulated that a response may be associated with altered cerebral outflow via extrinsic autonomic nerves to the gut. We investigated whether treatment changes extrinsic innervation, using mucosal laser Doppler flowmetry, whether autonomic changes are gut specific, and whether it changes gut transit.MATERIALS AND METHODSForty nine patients (44 female, mean age 39 years) with idiopathic constipation were studied before and after biofeedback treatment (mean five sessions). Rectal mucosal blood flow was measured by laser Doppler flowmetry to assess direct extrinsic gut nerve autonomic activity. To assess general autonomic activity, RR (interval between successive R waves on the electrocardiogram) variability, Valsalva ratio, orthostatic adjustment ratio, and phase II:IV blood pressure ratio (II:IV) of the Valsalva manoeuvre were measured. All autonomic tests were compared with those of 26 healthy volunteers (19 female, mean age 37 years).RESULTSTwenty nine of 49 patients were symptomatically improved. Treatment reduced those with ⩽3 bowel actions per week (27 v 9, prev post), need to strain (26v 9), and laxative or suppository use (34v 9). Biofeedback reduced retained markers by 32% in those with slow transit and by 20% in those with normal transit. Twenty two had slow transit before treatment—14 felt symptomatic improvement of whom 13 developed normal transit. There was a significantly greater increase in rectal mucosal blood flow in patients who subjectively improved compared with those who did not (29%v 7%; p<0.03) and in those with improved bowel frequency (33% v 9%, increasedv unchanged bowel frequency; p<0.05). Thirty five patients had abnormal RR variability and 33 an abnormal Valsalva ratio; one had an abnormal orthostatic adjustment ratio and one an abnormal II:IV ratio. None of the general cardiorespiratory autonomic reflexes was changed by treatment.CONCLUSIONSBiofeedback treatment affects more than the pelvic floor. Successful outcome after biofeedback treatment is associated with improved activity of the direct cerebral innervation to the gut and improved gut transit. This effect is gut specific; cardiovascular autonomic reflexes were not altered.
Futility has no utility in resuscitation medicine
Authors: Ardagh Michael 
Published: July 2002

“Futility” is a word which means the absence of benefit. It has been used to describe an absence of utility in resuscitation endeavours but it fails to do this. Futility does not consider the harms of resuscitation and we should consider the balance of benefit and harm that results from our resuscitation endeavours. If a resuscitation is futile then any harm that ensues will bring about an unfavourable benefit/harm balance. However, even if the endeavour is not futile, by any definition, the benefit/harm balance may still be unfavourable if the harms that ensue are great.It is unlikely that we will ever achieve a consensus definition of futility and certainly not one that is applicable to every patient undergoing resuscitation. In the meantime our use of the term “futile”, in the mistaken belief that it tells us whether it is worth resuscitating or not, has no utility as it will never succeed in telling us this. Furthermore we risk causing offence by use of the term and we risk harming the patient's autonomy by using futility as an overriding force. Instead we should consider the utility of our endeavours, for which an assessment of the harms of resuscitation should be added to our considerations of its benefit. This balance of benefit and harm should then be evaluated as best it can be from the patient's perspective. The words futile and futility should be abandoned by resuscitationists.
Personal exposures of children to nitrogen dioxide relative to concentrations in outdoor air
Authors: Linaker Catherine H , Chauhan Anoop J , Inskip Hazel M , Holgate Stephen T , Coggon David 
Published: July 2002

OBJECTIVESTo investigate the relation between fluctuations in personal exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in school children and changes in outdoor NO2concentrations.METHODS114 Asthmatic school children aged 7–12 years were recruited from the Southampton area. Weekly average personal exposures to NO2were measured over a 13 month period with passive diffusion tubes. At the same time, outdoor NO2concentrations were monitored at a fixed site in the centre of Southampton. Correlations between weekly personal exposures and mean outdoor concentrations during the same periods were examined.RESULTSMean duration of follow up was 32 weeks. Measurements of weekly mean personal NO2exposures were generally low and ranged from 0.7 to 496 μg/m3with a geometric mean of 17 μg/m3. Substantial variation in personal exposures occurred between children and more especially within individual children from week to week. Daily outdoor concentrations of NO2ranged from 4.3 to 29.8 μg/m3, with a geometric mean of 12.3 μg/m3. There was no evidence of seasonal variation in outdoor concentrations. No significant correlation was found between each child's weekly mean personal exposures to NO2and mean outdoor concentrations for the corresponding periods.CONCLUSIONAt low outdoor NO2concentrations, fluctuations in NO2in outdoor air as measured at a central monitoring station do not contribute importantly to variations in personal exposure when averaged over a week.
Changes in frequency of premature complexes and heart rate variability related to shift work
Authors: van Amelsvoort L G P M , Schouten E G , Maan A C , Swenne C A , Kok F J 
Published: July 2002

OBJECTIVESTo investigate whether an increased risk of cardiovascular disease might be caused by increased arrhythmogeneity and by unfavourable changes in autonomic cardiac control the changes in the occurrence of premature complexes (PVCs) and in heart rate variability (HRV) were studied in subjects who started to work in shifts.METHODS1 Year changes in frequency of PVCs and HRV were measured in 49 shift workers and 22 control subjects working in daytime. All respondents were starting in a new job in integrated circuit or waste incinerator plants.RESULTSThe incidence of PVC increased significantly in shift workers over the 1 year follow up, compared with daytime workers. The frequency of ventricular extrasystoles increased in 48.9% of the shift workers, and in 27.3% of the daytime workers. The Spearman correlation coefficient between the number of nights worked and the change in PVCs was 0.33 (p=0.004). A small non-significant unfavourable change in HRV was found in both the shift and daytime workers.CONCLUSIONSA change in arrhythmogeneity, but not in cardiac autonomic control, might explain the increased risk of cardiovascular disease in shift workers.
Drug induced chest pain—rare but important
Authors: Davey Patrick , Lalloo David G 
Published: July 2002

AbstractPericarditis, usually viral in origin, is an infrequent cause of chest pain. Pericarditis due to drug allergy is even less frequent and is thus rarely considered in the differential diagnosis. A case is reported of a woman who presented with severe chest pain, caused by minocycline induced pericarditis. Such allergy may be more common than reported. It is suggested that drug induced pericarditis should be included in the differential diagnosis of acute chest pain.
Tobacco lobby political influence on US state legislatures in the 1990s
Authors: Givel Michael S , Glantz Stanton A 
Published: July 2002

BACKGROUNDThroughout the 1990s the tobacco lobby was a potent political force in US state legislatures advancing its pro-tobacco agenda.OBJECTIVETo describe the market and political motivations of the tobacco lobby and the strategies they use to achieve these goals in US state legislatures.DESIGNThis study is a content analysis and summary overview of recently released historical tobacco industry documents; tobacco related government documents; and recent state tobacco control policy reports.RESULTSIn the 1990s, the tobacco lobby engaged in a comprehensive and aggressive political effort in state legislatures to sell tobacco with the least hindrance using lobbying, the media, public relations, front groups, industry allies, and contributions to legislators. These efforts included campaigns to neutralise clean indoor air legislation, minimise tax increases, and preserve the industry's freedom to advertise and sell tobacco. The tobacco lobby succeeded in increasing the number of states that enacted state pre-emption of stricter local tobacco control laws and prevented the passage of many state tobacco control policies. Public health advocates were able to prevent pre-emption and other pro-tobacco policies from being enacted in several states.CONCLUSIONSThe tobacco lobby is a powerful presence in state legislatures. Because of the poor public image of the tobacco lobby, it seeks to wield this power quietly and behind the scenes. State and local health advocates, who often have high public credibility, can use this fact against the tobacco lobby by focusing public attention on the tobacco lobby's political influence and policy goals and expose links between the tobacco lobby and its legislative supporters.
Sociodemographic predictors of success in smoking intervention
Authors: Monsó E , Campbell J , Tønnesen P , Gustavsson G , Morera J 
Published: July 2002

AIMTo examine the role of sociodemographic factors as predictors of sustained smoking cessation for the population who volunteer to participate in intervention programmes.METHODData for the 3575 smokers who participated in the CEASE (collaborative European anti-smoking evaluation) trial, a European multicentred study that used transdermal nicotine patches as an adjunct to smoking cessation in the chest clinic, were analysed. The effects of age, sex, smoking habit, socioeconomic status (housing conditions, education, and employment), disease, smoking habits of relatives, and baseline markers of tobacco use on sustained smoking cessation (self-reported abstinence and expired carbon monoxide < 10 parts per million) were assessed using logistic regression modelling (odds ratio (OR), 95% confidence interval (CI)).RESULTS477/3575 smokers were sustained abstainers one year after the intervention (overall success rate 13.3%). In the univariable logistic regression models an effect of active treatment on smoking cessation was observed (OR 1.50, 95% CI 1.15 to 1.96), and additional effects on outcome were found for age (OR 1.02, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.03), sex (menvwomen: OR 1.38, 95% CI 1.14 to 1.68), housing conditions (OR 1.43, 95% CI 1.25 to 1.65), current respiratory (OR 0.79, 95% CI 0.67 to 0.92) or cardiac disease (OR 0.46, 95% CI 0.28 to 0.75), and markers of tobacco use (cigarettes per day: OR 0.79, 95% CI 0.69 to 0.90; expired carbon monoxide: OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.97 to 0.99). Education and employment did not have a significant effect on the outcome. The effect of the variables associated with success in smoking cessation persisted after adjustment for covariates.CONCLUSIONAge, sex, and housing conditions have a major effect on smoking cessation in European smokers participating in smoking cessation programmes.
A 2-D HMM METHOD FOR OFFLINE HANDWRITTEN CHARACTER RECOGNITION
Authors: PARK HEE-SEON , SIN BONG-KEE , MOON JONGSUB , LEE SEONG-WHAN 
Published: July 2002

In this paper we consider a hidden Markov mesh random field (HMMRF) for character recognition. The model consists of a "hidden" Markov mesh random field (MMRF) and an overlying probabilistic observation function of the MMRF. Just like the 1-D HMM, the hidden layer is characterized by the initial and the transition probability distributions, and the observation layer is defined by distribution functions for vector-quantized (VQ) observations. The HMMRF-based method consists of two phases: decoding and training. The decoding and the training algorithms are developed using dynamic programming and maximum likelihood estimation methods. To accelerate the computation in both phases, we employed a look-ahead scheme based on maximum marginal it a posteriori probability criterion for third-order HMMRF. Tested on a larget-set handwritten Korean Hangul character database, the model showed a promising result: up to 87.2% recognition rate with 8 state HMMRF and 128 VQ levels.
WINNING ENTRY OF THE K. U. LEUVEN TIME-SERIES PREDICTION COMPETITION
Authors: McNAMES J. , SUYKENS J. A. K. , VANDEWALLE J. 
Published: July 2002

In this paper we describe the winning entry of the time-series prediction competition which was part of the International Workshop on Advanced Black-Box Techniques for Nonlinear Modeling, held at K. U. Leuven, Belgium on July 8–10, 1998. We also describe the source of the data set, a nonlinear transform of a 5-scroll generalized Chua's circuit. Participants were given 2000 data points and were asked to predict the next 200 points in the series. The winning entry exploited symmetry that was discovered during exploratory data analysis and a method of local modeling designed specifically for the prediction of chaotic time-series. This method includes an exponentially weighted metric, a nearest trajectory algorithm, integrated local averaging, and a novel multistep ahead cross-validation estimation of model error for the purpose of parameter optimization.
A SIMPLE REGULARIZATION METHOD FOR SOLVING ACOUSTICAL INVERSE SCATTERING PROBLEMS
Authors: PIANA MICHELE 
Published: July 2002

The problem of determining the shape of an object from far-field data is considered. We present a method, originally formulated in Ref. 1 and furtherly modified in Ref. 3, for the solution of this ill-posed nonlinear inverse problem whose main features are: • the method is exact, that is no low- or high-frequency approximation is considered; • it is not necessary to know the number of scatterers and whether or not the scatterers are penetrable by the waves; • if the medium is not penetrable, it is not necessary to know whether the obstacle is sound-hard or sound-soft; • in the case of an inhomogeneous scatterer, the method provides the shape of the inhomogeneity. The method is particularly simple since it requires only the solution of a linear Fredholm integral equation of the first kind whose integral kernel is the far-field pattern. The numerical instability due to ill-conditioning can be reduced by using regularization algorithms such as Tikhonov method where the regularization parameter is chosen by using Morozov's discrepancy principle generalized to the case where the noise affects the kernel of the integral operator.
A WIDE-ANGLE PARABOLIC EQUATION FOR ACOUSTIC WAVES IN INHOMOGENEOUS MOVING MEDIA: APPLICATIONS TO ATMOSPHERIC SOUND PROPAGATION
Authors: DALLOIS LAURENT , BLANC-BENON PHILIPPE , JUVÉ DANIEL 
Published: July 2002

Two new derivations of "vector" parabolic equations (PE) for use in acoustic propagation have recently been published. In these cases, PEs have been derived from first principles and incorporate velocity fluctuations of the medium as two additional vector terms. In the simpler case, large spatial-scale velocity fluctuations can be accommodated. In the more general case, multi-scale velocity fluctuations can be accommodated. In this paper we report on a series of two-dimensional numerical experiments which compares sound propagation predicted from traditional PEs with sound propagation predicted from these two "vector" PEs. Two types of velocity fields are simulated. One, suitable for approximating an atmospheric boundary layer, is a field in which velocity has only a horizontal component, but whose magnitude can depend on height, i.e., v=vx(z). The other is a field having random spatial fluctuations over a range of length scales and could be suggestive of atmospheric turbulence. In both cases celerity inhomogeneities are also included. Results suggest that at least, in two dimension, the standard PE using an effective index of refraction is not accurate to describe the effects of the mean and turbulent velocity on sound propagation near the ground. We suspect that in three-dimensional problems, the added terms in the "vector" PEs will significantly increase in importance.
ANGIOLEIOMYOMA IN HAND — A CASE REPORT
Authors: Utukuri M. M. , Srinivasan M. S. 
Published: July 2002

Angioleiomyomas are benign tumours arising from smooth muscle and composed of vascular tissue. They rarely occur in the hand. There are only about 100 such cases reported in English literature. This is because of the paucity of smooth muscle in the hand. The tumour is rarely diagnosed before surgery. The treatment is excision and ligation of feeder vessels. A slow growing tumour in the right hand in a 73-year-old gentleman which turned out to be an angioleiomyoma is presented in this paper.