bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Incidence and Prevalence of Multiple Sclerosis in Newfoundland and Labrador
Authors: Sloka J.S. , Pryse-Phillips W.E.M. , Stefanelli M. 
Published: December 2014

ABSTRACT:Background:The incidence and prevalence of multiple sclerosis (MS) in Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) had been reported in 1984 and was considered to be relatively low at that time. This study revisits the incidence and prevalence of MS in NL for the year 2001.Methods:Case searches through patient files of neurologists in NL were conducted. A complete list of patients billed for MS in NL between 1996 and 2003 was obtained and all cases were confirmed via chart review.Results:There were 493 living MS patients yielding a prevalence of 94.4/100,000 which is significantly higher than previously reported. Of the living patients, 330 had relapsing remitting (RRMS), 94 had secondary progressive, 66 had primary progressive (PPMS) and three had unspecified MS. The total female to male ratio was 2.7:1. There was no difference between the female to male ratios for RRMS vs PPMS. Patients with PPMS had a later onset compared to RRMS (p<0.00001). Yearly incidences were relatively constant from 1994 to 2001 (5.6/100,000). Significant delays between first symptoms and final diagnosis were common and the delay time has not changed over the past 15 years. A prevalence of 88.9/100,000 was estimated from survival and incidence trends and was not significantly different than the measured prevalence (p=0.38).Conclusion:The increase in incidence and prevalence are accounted for through both better access to diagnostic facilities and more practicing neurologists. The revised prevalence and incidence are more in keeping with recently reported values throughout Canada.Conclusion:L’augmentation de l’incidence et de la prÉvalence se justifient par une plus grande accessibilitÉ aux moyens diagnostiques et par la prÉsence d’un plus grand nombre de neurologues. La prÉvalence et l’incidence que nous rapportons sont plus conformes à celles rapportÉes rÉcemment à travers le Canada.
Indicators of Functional Status for Primary Malignant Brain Tumour Patients
Authors: Bussière Miguel , Hopman Wilma , Day Andrew , Pombo Alicia Paris , Neves Teresa , Espinosa Francisco 
Published: December 2014

Background:We compared the functional status and survival time of patients with malignant gliomas.Methods:This retrospective review included 143 patients diagnosed with malignant gliomas. Patients were grouped according to histopathological diagnosis. To measure functional status, patients were assigned a Karnofksy performance status (KPS) score at the time of presentation and at one, three, six, nine, 12 months and yearly intervals thereafter. Data were analyzed using descriptive methods as well as Kruskal-Wallis tests, Chi-square tests, Log-Rank tests and Cox’s proportional hazards modeling.Results:Eighty-four patients were male. The median age of patients was 63 years. One hundred and seven patients had a histopathological diagnosis of glioblastoma multiforme, 23 of anaplastic astrocytoma and 13 of anaplastic oligodendroglioma. Twenty-nine patients received aggressive multimodal treatment, 83 received intermediate treatment and the remaining 31 patients received conservative therapy. Significant treatment complications occurred in 33% of patients including four post-operative deaths. The anaplastic oligodendroglioma group had lower mortality and maintained better KPS scores over time, as did patients receiving full treatment. The most significant prognostic factors for functional status included age, pretreatment KPS, and type of treatment received. The most significant factors associated with time until death included age, severity of comorbidities, pretreatment KPS, presence of confusion, histopathological diagnosis and type of treatment received.Conclusion:In patients with malignant gliomas, younger age, better functional status at presentation and aggressive multimodal treatment were associated with improved longer-term functional status and survival. Confirmation of the effect of multimodal treatment on patient functional status would require a randomised controlled clinical trial.
Severe Traumatic Brain Injury in a Large Canadian Health Region
Authors: Zygun David A. , Laupland Kevin B. , Hader Walter J. , Kortbeek John B. , Findlay Christi , Doig Christopher J. , Hameed S. Morad 
Published: December 2014

Background:Although severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI) is a devastating condition with tremendous public health implications, the epidemiology of this disease has not previously been described in Canada. We sought to define the incidence, risk factors and outcome of patients suffering sTBI in a large Canadian region.Methods:A population-based surveillance cohort design was utilized to identify all Calgary Heath Region residents who were victims of trauma with an injury severity score ³12. Subsequent application of a specific sTBI case definition defined the final cohort.Results:The annual incidence of sTBI was 11.4 per 100,000 population. The incidence of sTBI was significantly higher for males as compared to females [17.1 vs. 5.9 per 100,000; relative risk (RR) = 2.91, 95% confidence interval; 2.17, 3.94; p<0.0001]. There was a striking increase in the annual age specific population incidence of sTBI observed among those older than 74 years of age. The relative risk among the highest risk group of elderly (>85 years) males as compared to the lowest risk female group (50-64 years) was 19.78 (95% CI; 6.27, 62.3; p<0.0001). One hundred and eight patients died prior to hospital discharge for a mortality rate of 5.1 per 100,000 per year.Conclusion:Severe traumatic brain injury is common among residents of the Calgary Health Region and is associated with a high mortality rate. Males and the elderly are at the highest risk for acquiring sTBI and may represent target groups for preventive efforts.Conclusion:Les lÉsions cÉrÉbrales par traumatisme crânien sÉvère sont frÉquentes parmi les rÉsidents de la rÉgion sanitaire de Calgary et sont associÉes à une mortalitÉ ÉlevÉe. Les hommes et les personnes âgÉes sont les groupes les plus à risque et constituent des groupes cibles pour les interventions à visÉe prÉventive.
Acute Bilateral Opercular Strokes Causing Loss of Emotional Facial Movements
Authors: Sim Valerie L. , Guberman Alan , Hogan Matthew J. 
Published: December 2014

The classic anterior opercular syndrome of Foix-Chavany-Marie presents with loss of voluntary facial, pharyngeal, lingual, and mastication movements, with preservation of emotional and automatic movements. Most commonly, sequential strokes affecting bilateral opercula cause this syndrome. The inverse clinical presentation, with selective loss of emotional facial movements, has only rarely been reported, and is less well-localized.Case report:We report a case of selective loss of emotional facial movements which resulted from bilateral acute infarcts. No etiology was discovered, and the syndrome was reversible.Discussion:The available literature, and findings in this case, suggest that voluntary and automatic facial movements have distinct pathways, and damage to the insula bilaterally may lead to the selective loss of emotional facial movements. The clinical presentation of this inverse automatic/voluntary dissocation needs to be recognized as a rare syndrome with bilateral localization, so that patients at higher risk of further stroke can quickly be identified.
Treatment of Intracranial Aneurysms with Hydrogel Coated Expandable Coils
Authors: Gunnarsson Thorsteinn , Klurfan Paula , terBrugge Karel G. , Willinsky Robert A. 
Published: December 2014

Background:Coiling of intracranial aneurysms with platinum coils sometimes results in relatively poor angiographic results which may be is related to low packing volumes achieved. Hydrogel coated expandable coils (HydroCoil®) have been shown to achieve better aneurysm volume filling which may potentially result in lower recanalization rates. Currently there is limited clinical data on their safety and efficacy in aneurysm treatment.Methods:We analyzed data from a prospectively collected database on patients treated at the Toronto Western Hospital. The analysis included the patients' characteristics, aneurysm size, packing, procedure related complications, recanalization and clinical outcome.Results:Twenty-nine aneurysms were treated with HydroCoils only or in combination with other coils. The average calculated filling of the aneurysm volume was 74-76%. On the immediate post treatment angiograms, 44% of the berry type aneurysms were completely obliterated, 33% had a residual neck and, in 20%, a residual aneurysm was seen. Follow-up imaging was available in 23 cases. On imaging follow-up (from 2 days to 11 months) one dissecting aneurysm had recanalized. There were six technical/medical complications with no clinical consequences. Two clinically significant procedural related complications occurred.Conclusion:HydroCoils can be used effectively to treat intracranial aneurysms. The volume expansion allows for much greater packing than described for bare platinum coils, which may result in better long-term results. The recanalization rate is low but the limited follow-up does not allow for any conclusion regarding the long-term outcome. The complication rate is similar to larger current series using bare platinum coils.
Acute heart failure in the older patient in the emergency department
Authors: Martín-Sánchez F. Javier , Rodríguez-Adrada Esther , Casado José Manuel Ribera 
Published: December 2014

SummaryAcute heart failure is a highly prevalent geriatric syndrome presenting one of the most frequent reasons for visits to the emergency department and hospital admission, and is associated with a high morbidity and mortality and acute functional impact. The present study reviews some of the features that characterize diagnosis and immediate management of acute heart failure in older people, as well as recommendations about the management of co-morbidity, risk stratification and the decisión-making process, and the design of care plans in this older age group within the setting of hospital emergency departments.
Unusual cause of aborted sudden cardiac death in a teen athlete: homozygosity for the 4G allele of the plasminogen activase inhibitor type 1 gene
Authors: Phillips Susie B. , Batlivala Sarosh , Knudson Jarrod D. 
Published: December 2014

AbstractCommon aetiologies of sudden cardiac death in children include coronary anomalies, channelopathies, and cardiomyopathies. Less frequently, hypercoagulable states cause sudden arrest. We report an unusual case of aborted sudden cardiac death in a teenager, ultimately found to have homozygosity for the 4G allele of the plasminogen activase inhibitor type 1 gene.
Highly Sensitive Ultraviolet Photodetectors Fabricated from ZnO Quantum Dots/Carbon Nanodots Hybrid Films
Authors: Guo Deng-Yang , Shan Chong-Xin , Qu Song-Nan , Shen De-Zhen 
Published: December 2014

AbstractUltraviolet photodetectors have been fabricated from ZnO quantum dots/carbon nanodots hybrid films and the introduction of carbon nanodots improves the performance of the photodetectors greatly. The photodetectors can be used to detect very weak ultraviolet signals (as low as 12 nW/cm2). The detectivity and noise equivalent power of the photodetector can reach 3.1 × 1017 cmHz1/2/W and 7.8 × 10−20 W, respectively, both of which are the best values ever reported for ZnO-based photodetectors. The mechanism for the high sensitivity of the photodetectors has been attributed to the enhanced carrier-separation at the ZnO/C interface.
An analysis of the tourism industry's management responses to political crises in Thailand.
Authors: Kanlayanasukho V. 
Published: December 2014

Abstract

This chapter examines (1) the characteristics of political crises; (2) the effects of political crises on tourism organizations; and (3) the implementation of a crisis management response by tourism stakeholders. By analysing the tourism industry's management responses to political crises in Thailand, this chapter identifies effective operational responses by tour operators based in tourism-generating countries when a crisis occurs in a tourism destination. It is emphasized that reliable information and effective communication is vital in managing such crisis. It is recommended that businesses obtain inside information from trusted sources. Moreover, simple clear messages to customers are important.
Disentangling the effects of climate, abundance, and size on the distribution of marine fish: an example based on four stocks from the Northeast US shelf
Authors: Bell Richard J. , Richardson David E. , Hare Jonathan A. , Lynch Patrick D. , Fratantoni Paula S. 
Published: December 2014

AbstractClimate change and fishing can have major impacts on the distribution of natural marine resources. Climate change alters the distribution of suitable habitat, forcing organisms to shift their range or attempt to survive under suboptimal conditions. Fishing reduces the abundance of marine populations and truncates their age structure leading to range contractions or shifts. Along the east coast of the United States, there have been major changes in fish populations due to the impacts of fishing and subsequent regulations, as well as changes in the climate. Black sea bass, scup, summer flounder, and winter flounder are important commercial and recreational species, which utilize inshore and offshore waters on the northeast shelf. We examined the distributions of the four species with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center trawl surveys to determine if the along-shelf centres of biomass had changed over time and if the changes were attributed to changes in temperature or fishing pressure through changes in abundance and length structure. Black sea bass, scup, and summer flounder exhibited significant poleward shifts in distributions in at least one season while the Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic Bight stock of winter flounder did not shift. Generalized additive modelling indicated that the changes in the centres of biomass for black sea bass and scup in spring were related to climate, while the change in the distribution of summer flounder was largely attributed to a decrease in fishing pressure and an expansion of the length–age structure. While the changes in ocean temperatures will have major impacts on the distribution of marine taxa, the effects of fishing can be of equivalent magnitude and on a more immediate time scale. It is important for management to take all factors into consideration when developing regulations for natural marine resources.
Discovery of recombining plasma in the supernova remnant 3C 391
Authors: Sato Tamotsu , Koyama Katsuji , Takahashi Tadayuki , Odaka Hirokazu , Nakashima Shinya 
Published: December 2014

Abstract
Recent X-ray study of middle-aged supernova remnants (SNRs) reveals strong radiative recombination continua (RRCs) associated with overionized plasmas, which origin still remains uncertain. We report a discovery of an RRC in the middle-aged SNR 3C 391. If the X-ray spectrum is fitted with a two-temperature plasma model in collisional ionization equilibrium (CIE), residuals of a Si xiv Lyα line at 2.006 keV, a S xvi Lyα line at 2.623 keV and the edge of a RRC of Si xiii at 2.666 keV are found. In fact, the X-ray spectrum is well described by the composite model consisting of the CIE plasma and a recombining plasma (RP). The abundance pattern suggests that the RP is due to ejecta from core-collapse supernova of the progenitor mass of about 15 M⊙. There is no significant difference of the recombining parameters between the south-east region and the north-west region surrounded by dense molecular clouds. We also find a hint of a Fe i Kα line at 6.4 keV (2.4 σ detection) from the south-east region of the SNR.
Widespread polycistronic transcripts in mushroom-forming fungi revealed by single-molecule long-read mRNA sequencing
Authors: Gordon Sean P. , Tseng Elizabeth , Salamov Asaf , Zhang Jiwei , Meng Xiandong , Zhao Zhiying , Kang Dongwan , Underwood Jason , Grigoriev Igor V. , Figueroa Melania , Schilling Jonathan S. , Chen Feng , Wang Zhong 
Published: December 2014

AbstractGenes in prokaryotic genomes are often arranged into clusters and co-transcribed into polycistronic RNAs. Isolated examples of polycistronic RNAs were also reported in some eukaryotes but their presence was generally considered rare. Here we developed a long-read sequencing strategy to identify polycistronic transcripts in several mushroom forming fungal species includingPlicaturopsis crispa, Phanerochaete chrysosporium, Trametes versicolorand Gloeophyllum trabeum1. We found genome-wide prevalence of polycistronic transcription in these Agaricomycetes, and it involves up to 8% of the transcribed genes. Unlike polycistronic mRNAs in prokaryotes, these co-transcribed genes are also independently transcribed, and upstream transcription may interfere downstream transcription. Further comparative genomic analysis indicates that polycistronic transcription is likely a feature unique to these fungi. In addition, we also systematically demonstrated that short-read assembly is insufficient for mRNA isoform discovery, especially for isoform-rich loci. In summary, our study revealed, for the first time, the genome prevalence of polycistronic transcription in a subset of fungi. Futhermore, our long-read sequencing approach combined with bioinformatics pipeline is a generic powerful tool for precise characterization of complex transcriptomes.
The Effectiveness of Leader Visits during the 2010 British General Election Campaign
Authors: Middleton Alia 
Published: December 2014

Research Highlights and Abstract This article shows The impact of leader visits on local results in general election campaigns. The importance of party leaders in contemporary election campaigns. That leader visits impact vote share but not turnout. The extent to which incumbency plays an important part in leader visit effectiveness. The leaders of the three largest political parties in the UK spent a significant proportion of the 2010 general election campaign touring constituencies. However, the potential impact of such visits upon local party vote share and constituency turnout has remained relatively unstudied. This article, using original data collected in 2010, is the first to examine leader visits during UK election campaigns. The constituencies visited are typically marginal, and while Gordon Brown mostly limited his visits to Labour-held constituencies, the leaders of the other two parties ran more expansionist visit strategies. Exploring the ability of leader visits to affect turnout and vote share, the analysis shows that visits made no impact on local turnout, but the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats received a boost in vote share in constituencies when their leaders visited. Disaggregating this further, these boosts were received primarily in seats held by Labour prior to the election.
Assembling and Spilling‐Over: Towards an ‘Ethnography of Cement' in a Palestinian Refugee Camp
Authors: Abourahme Nasser 
Published: December 2014

AbstractCamps as objects of study are all but moored in the juridico‐political and the ‘structure versus agency' binary. This article attempts to move beyond this paradigmatic frame towards a reading of the camp as a material assemblage that brings subjects and objects, people and things into mutually constitutive relations. In one Palestinian refugee camp it ‘ethnographically' tracks the most mundane, but ubiquitous, element there is: cement. If the Palestinian camp is subject to a foundational—and quintessentially modern—separation between the material and the representational, then cement, as the medium of a certain temporal dynamism in built life, is the point of this separation's excess. Cement, as both aesthetic and thing, mediates camp life in entirely unintended ways, breaching topological boundaries, spilling quotidian life—in all its uncategorized mess—into the political, and generating tension between the temporary and the permanent, return and the built. It is precisely in these tensions that refugee subjectivity takes shape; never simply as the directed actions of sovereign actors, but always as an everyday ‘negotiation' of the in‐between space of the spillover—this cleft between discursive subject positions and the vitality of built life itself. Camp form, here, is not derivative of legal structure, but an ever‐moving relationship between temporality and materiality.
Post‐Childe, Post‐Wirth: Response to Smith, Ur and Feinman
Authors: Taylor Peter J. 
Published: December 2014

AbstractThis is a reply to a critique of Jane Jacobs' ‘cities first' thesis with respect to agricultural origins. The critique's basic premise is that the archaeological record regarding the development of agriculture precedes the earliest cities and therefore the thesis is empirically refuted. Accepting this archaeological record for agriculture, the dispute centres on the archaeological record for city origins. Substituting a process definition of cities—city‐ness—for a ‘thing' definition (e.g. monumentality), this reply opens up pre‐Mesopotamian possibilities for city networks while conceding the difficulty in empirically obtaining evidence in earlier periods. Thus Jacobs' thesis cannot be absolutely refuted, and an exciting agenda for urban research emerges for archaeologists and social scientists.
Predictive Microbiology Coupled with Gas (O2/CO2) Transfer in Food/Packaging Systems: How to Develop an Efficient Decision Support Tool for Food Packaging Dimensioning
Authors: Chaix Estelle , Couvert Olivier , Guillaume Carole , Gontard Nathalie , Guillard Valerie 
Published: December 2014

AbstractCoupling gas transfer with predictive microbiology is essential to rationally design modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) strategies to ensure and guarantee food safety. Nowadays, these strategies are generally empirically built and over‑sized since packaging material with high barrier properties is often chosen by default even if such a high level of protection is not systematically required. Protection strategies could be improved using rational sizing based on quantitative analysis and mathematical modeling of mass transfer. This paper aims at reviewing the current knowledge available for developing such a tool and the further research needed. First there is a special focus on oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) solubility and diffusivity parameters, which are absolutely indispensable to accurately model mass transfer in MAP systems. Next, the current knowledge of the effect of O2/CO2 on the growth of microorganisms is explored with an emphasis on predictive microbiology. The last part points out the main bottlenecks and further research needed to be carried out in order to develop an efficient MAP modeling tool for food safety coupling O2/CO2 transfer and predictive microbiology.