bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Occupational risk factors for shoulder pain: a systematic review
Authors: van der Windt Daniëlle A W M , Thomas Elaine , Pope Daniel P , de Winter Andrea F , Macfarlane Gary J , Bouter Lex M , Silman Alan J 
Published: July 2002

OBJECTIVESTo systematically evaluate the available evidence on occupational risk factors of shoulder pain.METHODSRelevant reports were identified by a systematic search of Medline, Embase, Psychlit, Cinahl, and Current Contents. The quality of the methods of all selected publications was assessed by two independent reviewers using a standardised checklist. Details were extracted on the study population, exposures (physical load and psychosocial work environment), and results for the association between exposure variables and shoulder pain.RESULTS29 Studies were included in the review; three case-control studies and 26 cross sectional designs. The median method score was 60% of the maximum attainable score. Potential risk factors related to physical load and included heavy work load, awkward postures, repetitive movements, vibration, and duration of employment. Consistent findings were found for repetitive movements, vibration, and duration of employment (odds ratio (OR) 1.4–46 in studies with method scores ⩾ 60%). Nearly all studies that assessed psychosocial risk factors reported at least one positive association with shoulder pain, but the results were not consistent across studies for either high psychological demands, poor control at work, poor social support, or job dissatisfaction. Studies with a method score ⩾60% reported ORs between 1.3 and 4.0. Substantial heterogeneity across studies for methods used for exposure assessment and data analysis impeded statistical pooling of results.CONCLUSIONSIt seems likely that shoulder pain is the result of many factors, including physical load and the psychosocial work environment. The available evidence was not consistent across studies, however, and the associations were generally not strong. Future longitudinal research should evaluate the relative importance of each individual risk factor and the role of potential confounding variables—such as exposure during leisure time—to set priorities for the prevention of shoulder pain in occupational settings.
Occupational risk of infection by varicella zoster virus in Belgian healthcare workers: a seroprevalence study
Authors: Vandersmissen Godelieve , Moens Guido , Vranckx Robert , de Schryver Antoon , Jacques Pierre 
Published: July 2002

OBJECTIVESTo assess the prevalence of varicella zoster virus (VZV) antibodies in Flemish (Belgian) healthcare workers, to investigate the association between seronegativity and selected variables, and to assess the reliability of recall about disease as a predictor of immunity.METHODSA seroprevalence study of VZV antibodies (IgG) was conducted among a systematic sample of 4923 employees in various professional groups, employed in 22 hospitals in Flanders and Brussels (Belgium). Information about sex, age, department, job, and years of employment, the country of origin, and history of varicella was obtained. The presence of VZV antibodies was investigated with the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), Enzygnost anti VZV / IgG (Dade Behring, Marburg, Germany). Statistical analysis was performed by calculating prevalences and prevalence ratios (PRs) and their 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs). Sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values (PPV and NPV) of the recalled history were determined.RESULTSThe prevalence of VZV seropositivity in Flemish healthcare workers was 98.5% (95% CI 98.1 to 98.8). Seronegativity was significantly associated with age and job, increasing with both older and younger age. The prevalence of seronegative workers was significantly less in nursing staff than non-nursing staff. There was no significant difference for sex and years of employment. The PPV and NPV of recalled history were 98.9% and 3.4%. Sensitivity and specificity were 83% and 38.9%.CONCLUSIONThe prevalence of VZV seropositivity was very high in this sample of Flemish healthcare workers. Because of this low overall susceptibility, VZV infection seems not to be an important occupational risk among healthcare workers in Flanders. The increasing seronegativity above the age of 45 is possibly due to a loss of detectable antibodies. A positive history of varicella was a good predictor of immunity, but a negative history had no value as a predictor of susceptibility in adults.
Exposure assessment and lung function in pig and poultry farmers
Authors: Radon K , Weber C , Iversen M , Danuser B , Pedersen S , Nowak D 
Published: July 2002

OBJECTIVESTo describe the relation between spirometric findings and farming characteristics and variables of exposure to organic dust measured during work in animal buildings. Farmers have traditionally been described as having one of the most dangerous occupations, so a large scale study on European farmers was carried out. This is the report of the second part of that study.METHODS40 pig farmers in Denmark and 36 poultry farmers in Switzerland were chosen randomly and were assessed over 1 working day.RESULTSMean (SD) baseline spirometric results in pig farmers were higher than in poultry farmers (forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) (% of reference value) 108.3 (16.7)v100.2 (14.2); p=0.04). Baseline lung function results were significantly associated with ventilation of the animal houses. Furthermore, temperature was related to spirometric findings in pig farmers.CONCLUSIONSVentilation of the animal house and temperature might influence respiratory morbidity in farmers.
Hypersensitivity syndrome caused by amitriptyline administration
Authors: Milionis Haralampos J , Skopelitou Antigone , Elisaf Moses S 
Published: July 2002

Abstract
Adverse cutaneous manifestations are among the most common side effects associated with psychotropic drugs. Skin reactions due to amitriptyline (a tricyclic antidepressant agent) include rashes and hypersensitivity reactions (for example, urticaria and photosensitivity) as well as hyperpigmentation. Hypersensitivity syndrome is a specific severe idiosyncratic reaction causing skin, liver, joint, and haematological abnormalities, which usually resolve after the discontinuation of the implicated drug. A case of a 24 year old woman who experienced hypersensitivity syndrome three weeks after the initiation of amitriptyline is reported.
Human immunoglobulin for diabetic amyotrophy—a promising prospect?
Authors: Courtney A E , McDonnell G V , Patterson V H 
Published: July 2002

Abstract
Diabetic neuropathies are universally recognised and cause significant morbidity. At present improving glycaemic control is the only recognised treatment. A man with type 2 diabetes presented with disabling asymmetric lower limb proximal neuropathy. Rapid clinical, functional, and electrical improvement followed treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin. The aetiology of diabetic amyotrophy remains controversial but there is evidence for an immune mediated process and this case suggests a role for immunoglobulin in the management of this debilitating condition.
Rectal bleeding in a patient with portal hypertension
Authors: Sinha U K , Raha S K , Wilkins W E 
Published: July 2002

Abstract
A 77 year old woman presented for the first time in 1997 with severe haematemesis and melena. After initial resuscitation she underwent an emergency upper gastrointestinal endoscopy which showed bleeding oesophageal varices. She was treated with injection sclerotherapy.
Trends and affordability of cigarette prices: ample room for tax increases and related health gains
Authors: Guindon G E , Tobin S , Yach D 
Published: July 2002

Background: Increasing the price of tobacco products is arguably the most effective method of curbing the prevalence and consumption of tobacco products. Price increases would reduce the global burden of disease brought about by tobacco consumption.Objectives: To compare cigarette price data from more than 80 countries using varying methods, examine trends in prices and affordability during the 1990s, and explore various policy implications pertaining to tobacco prices.Design: March 2001 cigarette price data from the Economist Intelligence Unit are used to compare cigarette prices across countries. To facilitate comparison and to assess affordability, prices are presented in US dollars, purchasing power parity (PPP) units using the Big Mac index as an indicator of PPP and in terms of minutes of labour required to purchase a pack of cigarettes. Annual real percentage changes in cigarette prices between 1990 and 2000 and annual changes in the minutes of labour required to buy cigarettes between 1991 and 2000 are also calculated to examine trends.Results: Cigarette prices tend to be higher in wealthier countries and in countries that have strong tobacco control programmes. On the other hand, minutes of labour required to purchase cigarettes vary vastly between countries. Trends between 1990 and 2000 in real prices and minutes of labour indicate, with some exceptions, that cigarettes have become more expensive in most developed countries but more affordable in many developing countries. However, in the UK, despite recent increases in price, cigarettes are still more affordable than they were in the 1960s.Conclusions: The results suggest that there is ample room to increase tobacco prices through taxation. In too many countries, cigarette prices have failed to keep up with increases in the general price level of goods and services, rendering them more affordable in 2000 than they were at the beginning of the decade. Opportunities to increase government revenue and improve health through reduced consumption brought about by higher prices have been overlooked in many countries.
GAP MEASUREMENTS IN MgB2 BREAK-JUNCTION AND POINT-CONTACT HETEROSTRUCTURES: TEST OF THE TWO-BAND MODELS
Authors: GONNELLI R. S. , UMMARINO G. A. , DAGHERO D. , CALZOLARI A. , STEPANOV V. A. 
Published: July 2002

We present a series of results concerning the determination of the gap(s) in MgB2 by means of break-junction and point-contact measurements. We were able to observe the small 3D gap predicted by the two-band models for MgB2 in the clean limit as well as the gap in dirty limit. We were also able to follow the temperature evolution of the latter, from 4.2 K up to a reduced critical temperature. We show that all our results can be explained in the framework of the two-band model provided that the existence of a damaged surface in dirty limit proximized by the clean bulk as well as the occurrence of parallel contacts are admitted.
STABILIZATION AGAINST RESISTANCE DEGRADATION OF SrTiO3 THIN FILMS BY Er DOPING
Authors: KITA R. , MATSU Y. , MASUDA Y. , YANO S. 
Published: July 2002

Doping effect of Er on the resistance degradation of SrTiO 3 thin films was investigated. The rate of the resistance degradation was decreased with the increase of the Er content in the films. The increase in the leakage current density at 100°C for the Er-0.186-mol%-doped SrTiO 3 thin film was less than one order of magnitude even after 1000 h, while that for undoped SrTiO 3 thin films, it was by about one order of magnitude after 10 h. The Er-doped STO thin film also showed high stability of the interface between the films and the Pt electrodes against heat treatment in N 2.
INTERVAL METHODS FOR RIGOROUS INVESTIGATIONS OF PERIODIC ORBITS
Authors: GALIAS ZBIGNIEW 
Published: July 2002

In this paper, we investigate the possibility of using interval arithmetic for rigorous investigations of periodic orbits in discrete-time dynamical systems with special emphasis on chaotic systems. We show that methods based on interval arithmetic when implemented properly are capable of finding all period-n cycles for considerable large n. We compare several interval methods for finding periodic orbits. We consider the interval Newton method and methods based on the Krawczyk operator and the Hansen–Sengupta operator. We also test the global versions of these three methods. We propose algorithms for computation of the invariant part and nonwandering part of a given set and for computation of the basin of attraction of stable periodic orbits, which allow reducing greatly the search space for periodic orbits. As examples we consider two-dimensional chaotic discrete-time dynamical systems, defined by the Hénon map and the Ikeda map, with the "standard" parameter values for which the chaotic behavior is observed. For both maps using the algorithms presented in this paper, we find very good approximation of the invariant part and the nonwandering part of the region enclosing the chaotic attractor observed numerically. For the Hénon map we find all cycles with period n ≤ 30 belonging to the trapping region. For the Ikeda map we find the basin of attraction of the stable fixed point and all periodic orbits with period n ≤ 15. For both systems using the number of short cycles, we estimate its topological entropy.
THE SEMIDIRECTLY CLOSED PSEUDOVARIETY GENERATED BY APERIODIC BRANDT SEMIGROUPS
Authors: TEIXEIRA M. LURDES 
Published: July 2002

This paper presents a study of the semidirectly closed pseudovariety generated by the aperiodic Brandt semigroup B2, denoted V*(B2). We construct a basis of pseudoidentities for the semidirect powers of the pseudovariety generated by B2 which leads to the main result, which states that V*(B2) is decidable. Independently, using some suggestions given by J. Almeida in his book "Finite Semigroups and Universal Algebra", we constructed an algorithm to solve the membership problem in V* (B2).
COFRAME TELEPARALLEL MODELS OF GRAVITY: EXACT SOLUTIONS
Authors: ITIN YAKOV 
Published: July 2002

The superstring and superbrane theories include gravity as a necessary and fundamental part of a (future) unified field theory. Thus it is important to consider the alternative representations of general relativity as well as the alternative models of gravity.We study the coframe teleparallel theory of gravity with a most general quadratic Lagrangian. The coframe field on a differentiable manifold is a basic dynamical variable. A metric tensor as well as a metric compatible connection is generated by a coframe in a unique manner.The Lagrangian is a general linear combination of Weitzenböck's quadratic invariants with free dimensionless parameters ρ1, ρ2, ρ3. Every independent term of the Lagrangian is a global SO(1,3)-invariant 4-form. For a special choice of parameters which confirms with the local SO(1,3) invariance this theory gives an alternative description of Einsteinian gravity — teleparallel equivalent of GR.The field equations of the theory is studied by a "diagonal" coframe ansatz which is a subclass of a most general spherical-nsymmetric Einstein–Mayer ansatz. The restricted Lagrangian depends only on two free parameters ρ1, ρ3.We obtain a formula for scalar curvature of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold with a metric constructed from the static "diagonal" solution of the field equation. It is proved that the sign of the scalar curvature depends only on a relation between the parameters ρ1and ρ3. Thus by a specific choice of free parameters a manifold of positive or negative curvature can be obtained. The scalar curvature vanishes only for a subclass of models with ρ1=0. This subclass includes the teleparallel equivalent of GR.We obtain the explicit form of all spherically symmetric static solutions of the "diagonal" type to the field equations for an arbitrary choice of free parameters. We prove that the unique asymptotic-flat solution with Newtonian limit is the Schwarzschild solution that holds for a subclass of teleparallel models with ρ1=0. Thus the Yang–Mills-type term of the general quadratic coframe Lagrangian should be rejected.
OPEN SETS SATISFYING SYSTEMS OF CONGRUENCES
Authors: DOUGHERTY RANDALL 
Published: July 2002

A famous result of Hausdorff states that a sphere with countably many points removed can be partitioned into three pieces A, B, C such that A is congruent to B (i.e. there is an isometry of the sphere which sends A to B), B is congruent to C, and A is congruent to B ∪ C; this result was the precursor of the Banach–Tarski paradox. Later, R. Robinson characterized the systems of congruences like this which could be realized by partitions of the (entire) sphere with rotations witnessing the congruences. The pieces involved were nonmeasurable. In the present paper, we consider the problem of which systems of congruences can be satisfied using open subsets of the sphere (or related spaces); of course, these open sets cannot form a partition of the sphere, but they can be required to cover "most of" the sphere in the sense that their union is dense. Various versions of the problem arise, depending on whether one uses all isometries of the sphere or restricts oneself to a free group of rotations (the latter version generalizes to many other suitable spaces), or whether one omits the requirement that the open sets have dense union, and so on. While some cases of these problems are solved by simple geometrical dissections, others involve complicated iterative constructions and/or results from the theory of free groups. Many interesting questions remain open.
Finite state verifiers I
Authors: Dwork Cynthia , Stockmeyer Larry 
Published: July 2002

An investigation of interactive proof systems (IPSs) where the verifier is a 2-way probabilistic finite state automaton (2pfa) is initiated. In this model, it is shown:
Additional results concern two other classes of verifiers: 2pfa's that halt in polynomial expected time, and 2-way probabilistic pushdown automata that halt in polynomial time. In particular, IPSs with verifiers in the latter class are as powerful as IPSs where verifiers are polynomial-time probabilistic Turing machines. In a companion paper [7], zero knowledge IPSs with 2pfa verifiers are investigated.
Answering queries on embedded-complete database schemes
Authors: Chan Edward P. F. , Mendelzon Alberto O. 
Published: July 2002

It has been observed that, for some database schemes, users may have difficulties retrieving correct information, even for simple queries. The problem occurs when some implicit “piece” of information, defined on some subset of a relation scheme, is not explicitly represented in the database state. In this situation, users may be required to know how the state and the constraints interact before they can retrieve the information correctly.In this paper, the formal notion ofembedded-completenessis proposed, and it is shown that schemes with this property avoid the problem described above. A polynomial-time algorithm is given to test whether a database scheme is independent and embedded-complete. Under the assumption of independence, it is shown that embedded-complete schemes allow efficient computation of optimal relational algebra expressions equivalent to theX-total projection, for any set of attributesX.
A text-compression-based method for code size minimization in embedded systems
Authors: Liao Stan , Devadas Srinivas , Keutzer Kurt 
Published: July 2002

We address the problem of code-size minimization in VLSI systems with embedded DSP processors. Reducing code size reduces the production cost of embedded systems
we use data-compression methods to develop code-size minimization strategies. In our framework, the compressed program consists of a skeleton and a dictionary. We show that the dictionary can be computed by solving a set-covering problem derived from the original program. To execute the compressed code, we describe two methods that have different performance characteristics and different degrees of freedom in compressing the code. We also address performance considerations, and show that they can be incorporated easily into the set-covering formulation, and present experimental results obtained with Texas Instruments' optimizing TMS3220C25 compiler.
Fast simulation of networks of queues with effective and decoupling bandwidths
Authors: Falkner Matthias , Devetsikiotis Michael , Lambadaris Ioannis 
Published: July 2002

A significant difficulty when using Monte Carlo simulation for the
performance analysis of communication networks is the long runtime required to obtain accurate statistical estimates. Under the proper conditions, importance sampling (IS) is a technique that can speed up simulations involving rare events in network (queuing) systems. Large speed-up factors in simulation runtime can be obtained with IS if the modification or bias of the underlying probability measures of certain random processes is carefully chosen. Fast simulation methods based on large deviation theory (LTD) have been successfully applied in many cases.
In this paper, we set up an IS-based simulation of various elementary network topologies. These configurations are frequenly encountered in broadband ATM-based network components such as switches and multiplexers. Our objective in this study is to obtain the optimal or near-optimal biasing parameter values of the arrival processes for the importance sampling simulation. For this purpose we appropriately apply a technique presented by Chang et al. for certain portions of the networks (intree) while we develop a new algorithm, inspired by the work of De Veciana et al. on decoupling bandwidths, for the non-intree portion of the network.
Database partitioning in a cluster of processors
Authors: Sacca Domenico , Wiederhold Gio 
Published: July 2002

In a distributed database system the partitioning and allocation of the database over the processor nodes of the network can be a critical aspect of the database design effort. In this paper we develop and evaluate algorithms that perform this task in a computationally feasible manner. The network we consider is characterized by a relatively high communication bandwidth, considering the processing and input output capacities in its processors. Such a balance is typical if the processors are connected via busses or local networks. The common constraint that transactions have a specific root node no longer exists, so that there are more distribution choices. However, a poor distribution leads to less efficient computation, higher costs, and higher loads in the nodes or in the communication network so that the system may not be able to handle the required set of transactions.
Our approach is to first split the database into fragments which constitute appropriate units for allocation. The fragments to be allocated are selected based on maximal benefit criteria using a greedy heuristic. The assignment to processor nodes uses a first-fit algorithm. The complete algorithm, called GFF, is stated in a procedural form.
The complexity of the problem and of its candidate solutions are analyzed and several interesting relationships are proven. Alternate benefit metrics are considered, since the execution cost of the allocation procedure varies by orders of magnitude with the alternatives of benefit evaluation. A mixed benefit evaluation strategy is eventually proposed.
A model for evaluation is presented. Two of the strategies are experimentally evaluated, and the reported results support the discussion. The approach should be suitable for other cases where resources have to be allocated subject to resource constraints.