bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Prediction of higher visual function in macular degeneration with multifocal electroretinogram and multifocal visual evoked potential
Authors: Herbik Anne , Geringswald Franziska , Thieme Hagen , Pollmann Stefan , Hoffmann Michael B. 
Published: August 2014

AbstractObjectiveVisual search can be guided by past experience of regularities in our visual environment. This search guidance by contextual memory cues is impaired by foveal vision loss. Here we compared retinal and cortical visually evoked responses in their predictive value for contextual cueing impairment and visual acuity.MethodsMultifocal electroretinograms to flash stimulation (mfERGs; 103 locations; 55.8° diameter) and visual evoked potentials to pattern‐reversal stimulation (mfVEPs; 60 locations; 48.6° diameter) were recorded monocularly in participants with age‐related macular degeneration (n = 14 and 16, respectively). Response magnitudes were calculated as the respective signal‐to‐noise ratios for each eccentricity. Visual acuities (logMAR, range: 0.0–1.2) and contextual cueing effects on visual search (reaction time gain, range: −0.14–0.15) were correlated with the signal‐to‐noise ratios. A step‐wise regression analysis was applied separately to the mfERG‐ and mfVEP‐dataset to determine the eccentricity range and the processing stage that is critical for these visual functions.ResultsCentral mfERGs (1.0–3.2°) were the sole predictor of contextual cueing of visual search (p = 0.006), but they were not significant predictors of visual acuity. In contrast, central mfVEPs (1.3–3.2°) were the sole predictor of visual acuity (p < 0.001), but they were not significant predictors of contextual cueing.ConclusionsContextual cueing is more dependent on parafoveal mfERG magnitude while visual acuity is more dependent on parafoveal mfVEP magnitude. The relation of contextual cueing to parafoveal mfERG magnitudes indicates the predictive value of retinal bipolar cell activity for this advanced level of visual function.
Comparison of Different Approaches to Atrioventricular Junction Ablation and Pacemaker Implantation in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation
Authors: ARENJA NISHA , KNECHT SVEN , SCHAER BEAT , REICHLIN TOBIAS , PAVLOVIC NIKOLA , OSSWALD STEFAN , STICHERLING CHRISTIAN , KÜHNE MICHAEL 
Published: August 2014

BackgroundTo compare the feasibility and efficiency of atrioventricular junction (AVJ) ablation and device implantation in patients with drug‐refractory atrial fibrillation using three different approaches.MethodsSixty‐nine patients (57% male; age 72 ± 10; ejection fraction 45 ± 15%) undergoing device implantation and AVJ ablation were retrospectively studied at a tertiary referral center. In 20 patients (29%) AVJ ablation was performed via the femoral vein immediately following device implantation (group 1), whereas 33 patients (48%) underwent a staged procedure with AVJ ablation via the femoral vein >3 weeks after device implantation (group 2). In a third group of 16 patients (23%), AVJ ablation was performed during device implantation through the pocket using the same axillary vein access site (group 3). The main outcome measures were: procedure time, fluoroscopy time, laboratory occupancy time, and success rate.ResultsThere was a significant difference in procedure time (118 ± 45 minutes. in group 1, 133 ± 32 minutes in group 2, and 87 ± 26 minutes in group 3, P < 0.001) and the laboratory occupancy time (175 ± 48 minutes in group 1, 200 ± 32 minutes in group 2, and 121 ± 27 minutes in group 3, P < 0.001). There was no difference in fluoroscopy time (group 1: 20 ± 15 minutes, group 2: 27 ± 22 minutes, and group 3: 24 ± 9 minutes P = 0.4). The procedure was successfully completed in all patients, but cross‐over to a femoral approach was required in one patient in group 3.ConclusionThe alternative approach of AVJ ablation during permanent pacemaker implantation from the same axillary vein access site is feasible and more efficient compared to the femoral approach.
Exogenous abscisic acid alleviates zinc uptake and accumulation in Populus × canescens exposed to excess zinc
Authors: SHI WEN‐GUANG , LI HONG , LIU TONG‐XIAN , POLLE ANDREA , PENG CHANG‐HUI , LUO ZHI‐BIN 
Published: August 2014

AbstractA greenhouse experiment was conducted to study whether exogenous abscisic acid (ABA) mediates the responses of poplars to excess zinc (Zn). Populus × canescens seedlings were treated with either basal or excess Zn levels and either 0 or 10 μm ABA. Excess Zn led to reduced photosynthetic rates, increased Zn accumulation, induced foliar ABA and salicylic acid (SA), decreased foliar gibberellin (GA3) and auxin (IAA), elevated root H2O2 levels, and increased root ratios of glutathione (GSH) to GSSG and foliar ratios of ascorbate (ASC) to dehydroascorbate (DHA) in poplars. While exogenous ABA decreased foliar Zn concentrations with 7 d treatments, it increased levels of endogenous ABA, GA3 and SA in roots, and resulted in highly increased foliar ASC accumulation and ratios of ASC to DHA. The transcript levels of several genes involved in Zn uptake and detoxification, such as yellow stripe‐like family protein 2 (YSL2) and plant cadmium resistance protein 2 (PCR2), were enhanced in poplar roots by excess Zn but repressed by exogenous ABA application. These results suggest that exogenous ABA can decrease Zn concentrations in P. × canescens under excess Zn for 7 d, likely by modulating the transcript levels of key genes involved in Zn uptake and detoxification.
Acclimation of isoprene emission and photosynthesis to growth temperature in hybrid aspen: resolving structural and physiological controls
Authors: RASULOV BAHTIJOR , BICHELE IRINA , HÜVE KATJA , VISLAP VIVIAN , NIINEMETS ÜLO 
Published: August 2014

AbstractAcclimation of foliage to growth temperature involves both structural and physiological modifications, but the relative importance of these two mechanisms of acclimation is poorly known, especially for isoprene emission responses. We grew hybrid aspen (Populus tremula x P. tremuloides) under control (day/night temperature of 25/20 °C) and high temperature conditions (35/27 °C) to gain insight into the structural and physiological acclimation controls. Growth at high temperature resulted in larger and thinner leaves with smaller and more densely packed chloroplasts and with lower leaf dry mass per area (MA). High growth temperature also led to lower photosynthetic and respiration rates, isoprene emission rate and leaf pigment content and isoprene substrate dimethylallyl diphosphate pool size per unit area, but to greater stomatal conductance. However, all physiological characteristics were similar when expressed per unit dry mass, indicating that the area‐based differences were primarily driven by MA. Acclimation to high temperature further increased heat stability of photosynthesis and increased activation energies for isoprene emission and isoprene synthase rate constant. This study demonstrates that temperature acclimation of photosynthetic and isoprene emission characteristics per unit leaf area were primarily driven by structural modifications, and we argue that future studies investigating acclimation to growth temperature must consider structural modifications.
Carbohydrate dynamics and mortality in a piñon‐juniper woodland under three future precipitation scenarios
Authors: DICKMAN LEE T. , MCDOWELL NATE G. , SEVANTO SANNA , PANGLE ROBERT E. , POCKMAN WILLIAM T. 
Published: August 2014

AbstractDrought‐induced forest mortality is an increasing global problem with wide‐ranging consequences, yet mortality mechanisms remain poorly understood. Depletion of non‐structural carbohydrate (NSC) stores has been implicated as an important mechanism in drought‐induced mortality, but experimental field tests are rare. We used an ecosystem‐scale precipitation manipulation experiment to evaluate leaf and twig NSC dynamics of two co‐occurring conifers that differ in patterns of stomatal regulation of water loss and recent mortality: the relatively desiccation‐avoiding piñon pine (Pinus edulis) and the relatively desiccation‐tolerant one‐seed juniper (Juniperus monosperma). Piñon pine experienced 72% mortality after 13–25 months of experimental drought and juniper experienced 20% mortality after 32–47 months. Juniper maintained three times more NSC in the foliage than twigs, and converted NSC to glucose and fructose under drought, consistent with osmoregulation requirements to maintain higher stomatal conductance during drought than piñon. Despite these species differences, experimental drought caused decreased leaf starch content in dying trees of both species (P < 0.001). Average dry‐season leaf starch content was also a good predictor of drought‐survival time for both species (R2 = 0.93). These results, along with observations of drought‐induced reductions to photosynthesis and growth, support carbon limitation as an important process during mortality of these two conifer species.
Halarachnion (Furcellariaceae, Rhodophyta), a newly reported genus for the Gulf of Mexico, with the description of Halarachnion louisianensis sp. nov
Authors: Arakaki Natalia , Suzuki Masahiro , Fredericq Suzanne 
Published: August 2014

SummaryHalarachnion is a newly reported genus for the Gulf of Mexico where it is represented by an undescribed species growing attached to rhodoliths at 52–73 m depth offshore Louisiana in the northwestern Gulf, USA. Aspects of the vegetative and female reproductive morphology of the Gulf species are documented, and compared to of Halarachnion latissimun from Japan. Halarachnion louisianensis sp. nov. is a monoecious, presumably heteromorphic species as inferred from the absence of tetrasporophytic specimens in our collections. Halarachnion latissimum, in contrast, is a dioecious species that is isomorphic. A distinct reproductive character that differentiates both species is the behavior of a connecting filament of which a lateral process fuses with an auxiliary cell lobe and effects more than one diploidization in H. louisianensis versus directly fusing with an auxiliary cell and effecting only a single diploidization in H. latissimum. Comparative chloroplast‐encoded rbcL sequence analysis indicates that the closest species relationship of isolates from the Gulf of Mexico remains equivocal, whereas reproductive morphology points to a closer affinity with H. ligulatum. This is the first report of the Furcellariaceae, a family in the Solieriaceae‐complex, for the Gulf of Mexico.
Focusing neurovisceral integration: Cognition, heart rate variability, and cerebral blood flow
Authors: Jennings J. Richard , Allen Ben , Gianaros Peter J. , Thayer Julian F. , Manuck Stephen B. 
Published: August 2014

AbstractThe neurovisceral integration hypothesis suggests in part that cerebral control of autonomic function conveys comparable control of executive function and, hence, correlation among vagally determined high frequency heart rate variability (HF‐HRV), executive function, and regional cerebral blood flow (CBF). In 440 middle‐aged men and women, resting HF‐HRV was related to regional CBF derived from a resting arterial spin‐labeled MRI scan and to seven neuropsychological tests of executive function. Despite some intercorrelations, regression modeling failed to support integrated central control of HF‐HRV and executive function. Integration between autonomic and cognitive control appears more circumscribed than the general integration suggested by the neurovisceral integration hypothesis.
Buddhism & Medicine in East Asian History
Authors: Salguero C. Pierce 
Published: August 2014

AbstractThough Buddhism has developed and grown in locally specific ways in various cultures around the world, it has perennially provided its devotees with a range of ideas and practices that concern health and well‐being. Since being introduced to East Asia, these aspects of the tradition have always remained a highly relevant part of the health care landscape. The study of the links between Buddhism and medicine in East Asia has recently undergone a renaissance in Western scholarship and is now emerging as a dynamic new field of study. While, traditionally, scholars have been interested in Chinese and Japanese Buddhist sources for what they might say about the history of Indian medicine, in recent years, the focus has shifted to the exploration of local East Asian cultural and historical facets. This article reviews the state of this field, introduces the available translations of primary sources and reference works, and provides brief summaries of the history of Buddhism and medicine in China and Japan. I also pay special attention to pointing out particular questions or areas that remain open to further inquiry.
Animals in Japanese Buddhism: The Third Path of Existence
Authors: Ambros Barbara 
Published: August 2014

AbstractBuddhism is often romanticized for promoting great kindness toward nonhuman animals, but while the tradition grants animals a degree of subjecthood and does not categorically deny them reason, morality, or the potential for salvation, there are also ambiguities and contradictions, even outright anthropocentrism. This overview of recent research on animals in premodern Japanese Buddhism demonstrates that animals shared with humans their status as sentient, living beings and were often attributed with superhuman, if not divine, powers; and yet as beasts, they also had a subhuman status. Because of their simultaneous kinship with and persistent otherness from humans, nonhuman animals were anthropomorphized for didactic purposes, delineating unwholesome and meritorious human conduct and its karmic effects and expressing tensions between competing ritual and religious systems. As spiritually hindered and potentially volatile beings, animals received ritual attention, but the objectives of such rituals often did not consist of bettering the lives of animals in the here and now. Instead, these rituals were often motivated by propitiatory and soteriological concerns and sometimes even served to condone violence against animals despite the persistent antisacrificial rhetoric in Buddhist discourse.
Automatic Selection of Landmarks for Navigation Guidance
Authors: Zhu Rui , Karimi Hassan A. 
Published: August 2014

AbstractAlthough current navigation services provide significant benefits to people's mobility, the turn‐by‐turn instructions they provide are sometimes ineffective. These instructions require people to maintain a high level of attention and cognitive workload while performing distance or angle measurements on their own mental map. To overcome this problem, landmarks have been identified as playing a major role in turn‐by‐turn instructions. This requires the availability of landmarks in navigation databases. Landmarks are commonly selected manually, which involves time‐consuming and tedious tasks. Automatic selection of landmarks has recently gained the attention of researchers but currently there are only a few techniques that can select appropriate landmarks. In this article, we present a technique based on a neural network model, where both static and dynamic features are used for selecting landmarks automatically. To train and test this model, two labeling approaches, manual labeling and rule‐based labeling, are also discussed. Experiments on the developed technique were conducted and the results show that rule‐based labeling has a precision of approximately 90%, which makes the technique suitable and reliable for automatic selection of landmarks.
Are Artworks More Like People Than Artifacts? Individual Concepts and Their Extensions
Authors: Newman George E. , Bartels Daniel M. , Smith Rosanna K. 
Published: August 2014

AbstractThis paper examines people's reasoning about identity continuity (i.e., how people decide that a particular object is the same object over time) and its relation to previous research on how people value one‐of‐a‐kind artifacts, such as artwork. We propose that judgments about the continuity of artworks are related to judgments about the continuity of individual persons because art objects are seen as physical extensions of their creators. We report a reanalysis of previous data and the results of two new empirical studies that test this hypothesis. The first study demonstrates that the mere categorization of an object as “art” versus “a tool” changes people's intuitions about the persistence of those objects over time. In a second study, we examine some conditions that may lead artworks to be thought of as different from other artifacts. These observations inform both current understanding of what makes some objects one‐of‐a‐kind as well as broader questions regarding how people intuitively think about the persistence of human agents.
New insights into the symbiosis between Zanclea (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) and scleractinians
Authors: Montano Simone , Arrigoni Roberto , Pica Daniela , Maggioni Davide , Puce Stefania 
Published: August 2014

Hydroids in the genus Zanclea are a recently discovered component of the fauna associated with reef‐building corals. The phylogenetic relationships among these species are not well known. The present work is based on field surveys in the Republic of Maldives, and for the first time, morphological and molecular analyses are integrated to distinguish a new hydroid species and provide new information on the ecology of this symbiosis. This new hydroid, Zanclea gallii sp. n., was associated with the scleractinian Acropora muricata; it was living sympatrically with its congener Zanclea sango, which was observed for the first time at this locality on the new scleractinian host Pavona varians. The relationships between these two hydroids and other available scleractinian‐associated Zanclea were investigated using two molecular markers, nuclear 28S rDNA and mitochondrial 16S rRNA. Zanclea gallii sp. n. and Z. sango were recovered as distinct lineages within a monophyletic group of scleractinian‐associated Zanclea based on both molecular and morphological data. All Zanclea species that were observed living in association with scleractinians belong to the ‘polymorpha group’ and share the morphological characteristic ‘polymorphic colony’. The genus Leptoseris is the 16th host coral identified for Zanclea. Compared with the frequency of the Z. gallii sp. n. association with A. muricata and Z. sango with the scleractinian P. varians, the latter is twice as common; however, the former exhibited higher Zanclea polyps concentrations over the colony surface. Overall, the Zanclea survey indicates that these diminutive hydroids are more commonly associated with coral than previously known.
Effect of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Flow Rate on Extraction Yield, Antioxidant Properties and Morphological Changes of Quercus infectoria Galls
Authors: Mohd Nasir Hasmida , Md Salleh Liza , Che Yunus Mohd Azizi 
Published: August 2014

The extraction condition of supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) extraction was used to extract Quercus infectoria galls, a medicinal plant which rich with bioactive compound, in order to maintain the green environment as well as the quality of the product. The study was performed to investigate the effect of extraction parameter (CO2 flow rate) on Quercus infectoria galls extract using SC-CO2 extraction. Then, the extract was analysed to determine their antioxidant activity and morphological changes of the Quercus infectoria galls before and after the extraction. Hence, three different CO2 flow rate have been investigated which were 2, 3, and 4 mL/min while pressure (P) and temperature (T) were fixed at highest density (P: 30 MPa, T: 40oC). The results obtained from this study showed the solvent flow rate of 2 mL/min give the highest percentage of extraction yield which is 0.37% compared to others. The extracts were screened for possible antioxidant activity by antioxidant activity 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) assays. In this study, the best result obtained was at flow rate of 3 mL/min with inhibition percentage of 96.97% but it showed insignificant difference with other CO2 flow rates. The change in morphology of the galls was significant when observed using scanning electron microscope (SEM). These results indicated that SC-CO2 extraction could be an alternative method for extraction of antioxidative compound from Q.infectoria galls.
Augmenting Commercialization of New Technology Intensive Firms
Authors: Hock Heng Low , Yusoff Mohd Effandi , Sofian Saudah , Norhalim Nadhirah 
Published: August 2014

Technology licensing and commercialization has increasingly been looked at as a complementary and attractive solution to gain insights into new technology innovations and market products. Stories of successful research commercialization programs from Silicon Valley have become the catalyst that encourages states to provide incentives and established structural reform in the form of state controlled agencies to accelerate and assist the commercialization of potential R&D products. Considerable debate has arisen about the effectiveness of those agencies, but asides for a few lone voices, the scholarly literature has largely neglected the views of grant recipients in commercializing of scientific research. This study hopes to shed some understanding of the impediments that grant recipients face in their endeavor to commercialize scientific research. Qualitative data examination utilizing theme analysis was performed and three main determinants were identified: human resources, market penetration, and financial constraints. We believe these three determinants have wider implication to the modern regime of commercialized scientific research.
Iris Localisation Using Fuzzy Centre Detection (FCD) Scheme and Active Contour Snake
Authors: Mat Ibrahim Masrullizam , Soraghan John S. , Abd Manap Nurulfajar 
Published: August 2014

Iris localisation is a crucial operation in iris recognition algorithm and also in applications, where irises are the main target object. This paper presents a new method to localise iris by using Fuzzy Centre Detection (FCD) scheme and active contour Snake. FCD scheme which consists of four fuzzy membership functions is purposely designed to find a centre of the iris. By using the centre of iris as the reference point, an active contour Snake algorithm is employed to localise the inner and outer of iris boundary. This proposed method is tested and validated with two categories of image database; iris databases and face database. For iris database, UBIRIS.v1, UBIRIS.v2, CASIA.v1, CASIA.v2, MMU1 and MMU2 are used. Whilst for face databases, MUCT, AT&T, Georgia Tech and ZJUblink databases are chosen to evaluate the capability of proposed method to deal with the small size of the iris in the image database. Based on the experimental result, the proposed method shows promising results for both types of databases, including comparison with the some existing iris localisation algorithm.
Design of a New Low Cost ROV Vehicle
Authors: M. Ahmed Yasser , Yaakob Omar , K. Sun Bong 
Published: August 2014

Remotely operated underwater vehicles which are also known as ROVs are a type of underwater robot vehicle which is widely used in the offshore industry or other applications. The main purpose of this type of tethered underwater mobile robots are tosupersede human to work at hard-to-access or jeopardizing underwater region to do certain specific tasks like to survey a site, search for an item or person that has tremendous value. The remote control of ROV is usually carried out through copper or fiber optic cables which are known as umbilical cables. In this research work a low cost ROV unit has been designed and constructed at UniversitiTeknologi Malaysia (UTM). The ROV was constructed by low cost material like commercial grade polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes. The low cost ROV is equipped with a network camera and manoeuvred by three motors through 12 volts battery power supply. The ROV is controlled by joystick controller through network cable and is able to submerge up to 20meters intowater to perform underwater observation operation.