bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Cardiac involvement in geleophysic dysplasia in three siblings of a Saudi family
Authors: Elhoury Motea E. , Faqeih Eissa , Almoukirish Abdulrahman S. , Galal Mohammed O. 
Published: November 2013

AbstractGeleophysic dysplasia is an extremely rare acromelic skeletal dysplasia resembling lysosomal storage disease. It is characterised by characteristic facial phenotype, short stature, micromelia, joint contracture, and early cardiac valvular involvement. It has been described worldwide in <40 patients. Herein, we describe the cardiac features in three Saudi sisters with proved autosomal recessive geleophysic dysplasia who showed different levels of severity of their cardiac involvement.
Procollagen type III amino-terminal propeptide: a serum biomarker of left ventricular remodelling in paediatric dilated cardiomyopathy
Authors: Kaufman Beth D. , Videon Nancy , Zhang Xuemei , Harris Matthew A. , Shaddy Robert E. , Goldmuntz Elizabeth 
Published: November 2013

AbstractBackgroundProcollagen type III amino-terminal propeptide is a collagen III cleavage product released in blood. The serum levels of this propeptide in adults with dilated cardiomyopathy are associated with cardiac remodelling and prognosis. The utility of procollagen type III amino-terminal propeptide as a biomarker in paediatric dilated cardiomyopathy is unknown.MethodsThis was a prospective, longitudinal study of children with dilated cardiomyopathy and changes in procollagen type III amino-terminal propeptide. The serum level of propeptide was measured serially, compared with paediatric normal values, and correlated with clinical status and left ventricular size and function on echocardiograms and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging.ResultsProcollagen type III amino-terminal propeptide was measured serially in 149 samples from 39 patients, age 9.0±6.4 years, followed up for 16.8±16.3 months. Procollagen type III amino-terminal propeptide in dilated cardiomyopathy was higher than in normal children. On multivariate analyses, procollagen type III amino-terminal propeptide had a positive correlation with left ventricular dilation, left ventricular end-diastolic diameter index (p<0.0001), and left ventricular end-diastolic diameter Z-score (p=0.0003), and a negative correlation with shortening fraction changes over time (p=0.001). Patients with myocarditis (n=12) had higher procollagen type III amino-terminal propeptide values than those with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (n=20).ConclusionsProcollagen type III amino-terminal propeptide increases with left ventricular dilation and decreases with improvement in systolic function in paediatric dilated cardiomyopathy, indicating a role as a biomarker of cardiac remodelling in children. The diagnostic utility of procollagen type III amino-terminal propeptide to differentiate myocarditis from idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy warrants further investigation.
A temporal analysis of the spatial clustering of food outlets around schools in Christchurch, New Zealand, 1966 to 2006
Authors: Day Peter L , Pearce Jamie R , Pearson Amber L 
Published: November 2013

AbstractObjectiveTo explore changes in urban food environments near schools, as potential contributors to the rising prevalence of overweight and obesity among children.DesignAddresses of food premises and schools in 1966, 1976, 1986, 1996 and 2006 were geo-coded. For each year, the number and proportion of outlets by category (supermarket/grocery; convenience; fast-food outlet) within 800 m of schools were calculated. The degree of spatial clustering of outlets was assessed using a bivariate K-function analysis. Food outlet categories, school level and school social deprivation quintiles were compared.SettingChristchurch, New Zealand.SubjectsAll schools and food outlets at 10-year snapshots from 1966 to 2006.ResultsBetween 1966 and 2006, the median number of supermarkets/grocery stores within 800 m of schools decreased from 5 to 1, convenience stores decreased from 2 to 1, and fast-food outlets increased from 1 to 4. The ratio of fast-food outlets to total outlets increased from 0·10 to 0·67. The clustering of fast-food outlets was greatest within 800 m of schools and around the most socially deprived schools. Over the 40-year study period, school food environments in Christchurch can be characterized by increased densities of fast-food outlets within walking distance of schools, especially around the most deprived schools.ConclusionsSince the 1960s, there have been substantial changes to the food environments around schools which may increasingly facilitate away-from-home food consumption for children and provide easily accessible, cheap energy-dense foods, a recognized contributor to the rise in prevalence of overweight and obesity among young people.
Highly mobile and reactive state of hydrogen in metal oxide semiconductors at room temperature
Authors: Chen Wan Ping , He Ke Feng , Wang Yu , Chan Helen Lai Wah , Yan Zijie 
Published: November 2013

AbstractHydrogen in metal oxides usually strongly associates with a neighboring oxygen ion through an O-H bond and thus displays a high stability. Here we report a novel state of hydrogen with unusually high mobility and reactivity in metal oxides at room temperature. We show that freshly doped hydrogen in Nb2O5 and WO3 polycrystals via electrochemical hydrogenation can reduce Cu2+ ions into Cu0 if the polycrystals are immersed in a CuSO4 solution, while this would not happen if the hydrogenated polycrystals have been placed in air for several hours before the immersion. Time-dependent studies of electrochemically hydrogenated rutile single crystals reveal two distinct states of hydrogen: one as protons covalently bonded to oxygen ions, while the other one is highly unstable with a lifetime of just a few hours. Observation of this mobile and reactive state of hydrogen will provide new insight into numerous moderate and low temperature interactions between metal oxides and hydrogen.
Resistorless switched‐capacitor bandgap voltage reference with low sensitivity to process variations
Authors: Klimach H. , Costa A.L.T. , Monteiro M.F.C. , Bampi S. 
Published: November 2013

A novel switched‐capacitor bandgap voltage reference circuit is presented that dispenses entirely with the use of resistors. Since capacitors are used instead of resistors, variability problems from devices mismatch and process spread are reduced, compared with traditional topologies. The proportional‐to‐absolute‐temperature drift and the complementary‐to‐absolute‐temperature drift voltages are both generated by the same PNP vertical bipolar transistor obtained in bulk CMOS, minimising mismatch problems even further. A switched‐capacitor circuit stores, amplifies and sums these voltages, generating the bandgap voltage after five clock cycles. The operational amplifier offset voltage is also cancelled by the switching scheme proposed. The current sources which are used to generate different junction current densities are averaged in the switching process, reducing their mismatch impact on the circuit performance. A systematic comparison to a traditional bandgap topology with resistors is presented, both designed in the CMOS 180 nm process, and demonstrates the better performance of the new topology with respect to the former. Monte Carlo simulations show significantly lower spread resulting from devices mismatch in the output reference voltage (VREF) and also in its temperature coefficient.
Research on temperature characteristic of thermoelectric microwave power sensors based on GaAs MMIC technology
Authors: Wang De‐Bo , Liao Xiaoping 
Published: November 2013

The effect of temperature on thermoelectric microwave power sensors is researched in order to extend its application field. The fabrication of this microwave power sensor is divided into a front side and a back side processing using GaAs MMIC process and MEMS technology. The measurement results show that the temperature has a significant effect on the performance of thermoelectric microwave power sensors. The obtained temperature coefficient is about 0.488 mV/(W · K), which has an important reference value for the thermoelectric microwave power sensors. The reason is that the accuracy of microwave power measurement will be realised as long as the environment temperature is tracked.
Adaptive quality of service aware multi‐mobility anchor point registration in hierarchical mobile IPv6 wireless access networks
Authors: Barkoosaraei Ana Mirsayar , Aghvami A. Hamid , Pangalos Paul 
Published: November 2013

In hierarchical mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6), mobility anchor points (MAPs) are introduced to reduce the signalling cost by localising the signalling traffic of mobile nodes (MNs). However, the presence of MAPs introduces areas of bottleneck within the network. This study evaluates the impact of overlapped domains of consecutive MAPs in HMIPv6 access networks. In this novel network architecture, an MAP registration algorithm is also proposed to enable MNs to register with more than one MAP simultaneously. For each flow, the proposed algorithm determines a primary and a secondary MAP according to the quality of service (QoS) requirements of the traffic flow. Load balancing is also introduced to provide an even distribution of load among MAPs. In addition, an extended router advertisement is proposed to enable multiple MAP registration of MNs. The impact of the proposed algorithm in the new HMIPv6 network architectures is compared with a non‐QoS aware multi‐MAP registration algorithm in access network with no overlapped MAP domains. The simulation‐based comparison study illustrates a maximum of 71 and 74% improvements in total amount of rejected bandwidth and the mean satisfied flow requests in network, respectively.
Retrieval of local surface wave velocities from traffic noise – an example from the La Barge basin (Wyoming)
Authors: Behm M. , Leahy Garrett M. , Snieder R. 
Published: November 2013

ABSTRACTIn regions where active source seismic exploration is constrained by limitations of energy penetration and recovery, cost and logistical concerns, or regulatory restrictions, analysis of natural source seismic data may provide an alternative. In this study, we investigate the feasibility of using locally‐generated seismic noise in the 2–6 Hz band to obtain a subsurface model via interferometric analysis. We apply this technique to three‐component data recorded during the La Barge Passive Seismic Experiment, a local deployment in south‐western Wyoming that recorded continuous seismic data between November 2008 and June 2009. We find traffic noise from a nearby state road to be the dominant source of surface waves recorded on the array and observe surface wave arrivals associated with this source up to distances of 5 kms. The orientation of the road with respect to the deployment ensures a large number of stationary points, leading to clear observations on both in‐line and cross‐line virtual source‐receiver pairs. This results in a large number of usable interferograms, which in turn enables the application of standard active source processing methods like signal processing, common offset stacking and traveltime inversion. We investigate the dependency of the interferograms on the amount of data, on a range of processing parameters and on the choice of the interferometry algorithm. The obtained interferograms exhibit a high signal‐to‐noise ratio on all three components. Rotation of the horizontal components to the radial/transverse direction facilitates the separation of Rayleigh and Love waves. Though the narrow frequency spectrum of the surface waves prevents the inversion for depth‐dependent shear‐wave velocities, we are able to map the arrival times of the surface waves to laterally varying group and phase velocities for both Rayleigh and Love waves. Our results correlate well with the known geological structure. We outline a scheme for obtaining localized surface wave velocities from local noise sources and show how the processing of passive data benefits from a combination with well‐established exploration seismology methods. We highlight the differences with interferometry applied to crustal scale data and conclude with recommendations for similar deployments.
Research Note: Experimental measurements of Q‐contrast reflections
Authors: Lines Larry , Wong Joe , Innanen Kris , Vasheghani Fereidoon , Sondergeld Carl , Treitel Sven , Ulrych Tadeusz 
Published: November 2013

ABSTRACTWhile seismic reflection amplitudes are generally determined by real acoustical impedance contrasts, there has been recent interest in reflections due to contrasts in seismic‐Q. Herein we compare theoretical and modelled seismic reflection amplitudes for two different cases of material contrasts. In case A, we examine reflections from material interfaces that have a large contrast in real‐valued impedance () with virtually no contrast in seismic‐Q. In case B, we examine reflections from material interfaces that have virtually no contrast in but that have very large seismic‐Q contrasts. The complex‐valued reflection coefficient formula predicts non‐zero seismic reflection amplitudes for both cases. We choose physical materials that typify the physics of both case A and case B. Physical modelling experiments show significantly large reflections for both cases – with the reflections in the two cases being phase shifted with respect to each other, as predicted theoretically. While these modelling experiments show the existence of reflections that are predicted by theory, there are still intriguing questions regarding the size of the Q‐contrast reflections, the existence of large Q‐contrast reflections in reservoir rocks and the possible application of Q‐reflection analysis to viscosity estimation in heavy oilfields.
Joint parameter estimation from magnetic resonance and vertical electric soundings using a multi‐objective genetic algorithm
Authors: Akca İrfan , Günther Thomas , Müller‐Petke Mike , Başokur Ahmet T. , Yaramanci Ugur 
Published: November 2013

ABSTRACTMagnetic resonance sounding (MRS) has increasingly become an important method in hydrogeophysics because it allows for estimations of essential hydraulic properties such as porosity and hydraulic conductivity. A resistivity model is required for magnetic resonance sounding modelling and inversion. Therefore, joint interpretation or inversion is favourable to reduce the ambiguities that arise in separate magnetic resonance sounding and vertical electrical sounding (VES) inversions. A new method is suggested for the joint inversion of magnetic resonance sounding and vertical electrical sounding data. A one‐dimensional blocky model with varying layer thicknesses is used for the subsurface discretization. Instead of conventional derivative‐based inversion schemes that are strongly dependent on initial models, a global multi‐objective optimization scheme (a genetic algorithm [GA] in this case) is preferred to examine a set of possible solutions in a predefined search space. Multi‐objective joint optimization avoids the domination of one objective over the other without applying a weighting scheme. The outcome is a group of non‐dominated optimal solutions referred to as the Pareto‐optimal set. Tests conducted using synthetic data show that the multi‐objective joint optimization approximates the joint model parameters within the experimental error level and illustrates the range of trade‐off solutions, which is useful for understanding the consistency and conflicts between two models and objectives. Overall, the Levenberg‐Marquardt inversion of field data measured during a survey on a North Sea island presents similar solutions. However, the multi‐objective genetic algorithm method presents an efficient method for exploring the search space by producing a set of non‐dominated solutions. Borehole data were used to provide a verification of the inversion outcomes and indicate that the suggested genetic algorithm method is complementary for derivative‐based inversions.
‘What help can you get talking to somebody?’ Explaining class differences in the use of talking treatments
Authors: Holman Daniel 
Published: November 2013

AbstractTalking treatments are underused in England by working‐class people: their higher rates of common mental disorders compared with their middle‐class counterparts are not matched by an increased use of these treatments. Given that, overall, talking treatments are effective in tackling depression and anxiety, understanding their underuse is important. Based upon semi‐structured interview data I argue that a framework centred on individuals' cultural dispositions towards treatment can help with this task. Following Bourdieu, such dispositions can be traced to social structural conditioning factors, together comprising the habitus. Four key dispositions emerge from the data: verbalisation and introspection, impetus for emotional health, relation to medical authority and practical orientation to the future. In turn, these dispositions are rooted in the material, health, occupational and educational characteristics of working‐class circumstances. Tracing these circumstances offers suggestions for increasing the use of this service.
Constructing notions of healthcare productivity: the call for a new professionalism?
Authors: Moffatt Fiona , Martin Paul , Timmons Stephen 
Published: November 2013

AbstractImproving performance is an imperative for most healthcare systems in industrialised countries. This article considers one such system, the UK's National Health Service (NHS). Recent NHS reforms and strategies have advocated improved healthcare productivity as a fundamental objective of policy and professional work. This article explores the construction of productivity in contemporary NHS discourse, analysing it via the Foucauldian concept of governmentality. In this manner it is possible to investigate claims that the commodification of health work constitutes a threat to autonomy, and counter that with an alternative view from a perspective of neoliberal self‐governance. Contemporary policy documents pertaining to NHS productivity were analysed using discourse analysis to examine the way in which productivity was framed and how responsibility for inefficient resource use, and possible solutions, were constructed. Data reveals the notion of productivity as problematic, with professionals as key protagonists. A common narrative identifies traditional NHS command/control principles as having failed to engage professionals or having been actively obstructed by them. In contrast, new productivity narratives are framed as direct appeals to professionalism. These new narratives do not support deprofessionalisation, but rather reconstruct responsibilities, what might be called ‘new professionalism’, in which productivity is identified as an individualised professional duty.
Maximizing pond biodiversity across the landscape: a case study of larval ambystomatid salamanders
Authors: Peterman W. E. , Anderson T. L. , Drake D. L. , Ousterhout B. H. , Semlitsch R. D. 
Published: November 2013

AbstractLoss or alteration of natural wetland habitats is a near ubiquitous global phenomenon. In theUS, legislation mandates that all lost wetland habitats be replaced; manmade wetland habitats rarely have the same structural form or ecological function as natural wetlands. In the easternUS, these manmade pond habitats often serve as water sources for wildlife, but many are also utilized by amphibians for reproduction. Understanding the features that maximize species’ abundance and diversity is critical to effective management. In this study, we surveyed for ambystomatid salamander larvae at 169 manmade ponds in a military training installation. Three species were present:Ambystoma maculatum,A. opacumand the regionally endemicA. annulatum. We estimated larval densities in each pond in relation to landscape‐ and pond‐level covariates. Important factors relating to larval density were forest habitat surrounding each pond, canopy cover over a pond, the number of ponds within 300 m of the focal pond, presence of fish, slope of the pond basin, hydroperiod and amount of vegetation within the pond. Density estimates for each species were best predicted by different combinations of these factors, underscoring the need to provide a range of pond habitats to promote species diversity on the landscape. Our results indicate that manmade ponds are providing a valuable reproductive resource, but that future construction of ponds on the landscape will best serve the salamander and broader amphibian community if different combinations of hydroperiod and slope are utilized.
Cost‐effectiveness of extended cessation treatment for older smokers
Authors: Barnett Paul G. , Wong Wynnie , Jeffers Abra , Munoz Ricardo , Humfleet Gary , Hall Sharon 
Published: November 2013

AbstractAimsWe examined the cost‐effectiveness of extended smoking cessation treatment in older smokers.DesignParticipants who completed a 12‐week smoking cessation program were factorial randomized to extended cognitive behavioral treatment and extended nicotine replacement therapy.SettingA free‐standing smoking cessation clinic.ParticipantsA total of 402 smokers aged 50 years and older were recruited from the community.MeasurementsThe trial measured biochemically verified abstinence from cigarettes after 2 years and the quantity of smoking cessation services utilized. Trial findings were combined with literature on changes in smoking status and the age‐ and gender‐adjusted effect of smoking on health‐care cost, mortality and quality of life over the long term in a Markov model of cost‐effectiveness over a lifetime horizon.FindingsThe addition of extended cognitive behavioral therapy added $83 in smoking cessation services cost [P = 0.012, confidence interval (CI) = $22–212]. At the end of follow‐up, cigarette abstinence rates were 50.0% with extended cognitive behavioral therapy and 37.2% without this therapy (P < 0.05, odds ratio 1.69, CI 1.18–2.54). The model‐based incremental cost‐effectiveness ratio was $6324 per quality‐adjusted life year (QALY). Probabilistic sensitivity analysis found that the additional $947 in lifetime cost of the intervention had a 95% confidence interval of −$331 to 2081; the 0.15 additional QALYs had a confidence interval of 0.035–0.280, and that the intervention was cost‐effective against a $50 000/QALY acceptance criterion in 99.6% of the replicates. Extended nicotine replacement therapy was not cost‐effective.ConclusionsAdding extended cognitive behavior therapy to standard cessation treatment was cost‐effective. Further intensification of treatment may be warranted.
Confronting uncertainty: Anthropology and zones of the extraordinary
Authors: NIEHAUS ISAK 
Published: November 2013

ABSTRACTAnthropological theory has privileged consideration of the regularities of everyday life and has paid far less attention to irregular events that disrupt the social order. In this article, I contribute to ongoing theoretical attempts to redress this imbalance. While I acknowledge the potential historical importance of irregular and extraordinary events, I do not see them as entirely free‐floating. Here I concur with Marshall Sahlins, who convincingly shows how people order unusual events through mythopraxis and also how social structures facilitate individual agency. I contemplate a third possible relation between structure and event, namely, “framing.” Drawing on my fieldwork in Bushbuckridge, South Africa, I show how people located and framed unfortunate and destructive events in zones that stood apart from everyday life. This process provides insight into witchcraft and homicide, topics that can no longer be understood only in terms of systemic agency.