bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Psychometric evaluation of ‘The 25‐item Sex after MI Knowledge Test’ in a Swedish context
Authors: Svedberg Petra , Johansson Ingela , Persson Sylvie , Roxberg Åsa , Fridlund Bengt , Baigi Amir , Brunt David , Roijer Carin Alm , Malm Dan , Rask Mikael , Nilsson Ulrica ,   the SAMMI‐study group
Published: July 2011

Scand J Caring Sci; 2012; 26; 203–208Psychometric evaluation of ‘The 25‐item Sex after MI Knowledge Test’ in a Swedish contextThe patients’ sexual life after a myocardial infarction is important for his/her quality of life. In spite of this, many patients are in doubt regarding their sex life after a myocardial infarction (MI) and the sexual information received, and counselling from health care providers has been seen to be insufficient. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of ‘The 25‐item Sex after MI Knowledge Test’ in a Swedish context. A convenience sample was recruited. The scale was translated into Swedish and completed by 79 former patients from The Heart and Lung Patients’ National Association on two occasions, with an interval of 2 weeks. The scale was tested for face and content validity, internal consistency and test–retest reliability. The result in this study indicates that the instrument has good face and content validity and displayed a moderate internal consistency (alpha 0.61). The instrument showed some level of instability in test–retest reliability with 60% of the items presenting moderate or strong agreement between the test and retest. Further studies that use this instrument in larger and more diverse samples are thus needed.
Why feed the hand that bites you? Perceptions of procedural fairness and system support in post‐communist democracies
Authors: LINDE JONAS 
Published: July 2011

AbstractThere is widespread agreement that bad governance and corruption represent daunting threats to new democracies and developing countries. Nonetheless, mainstream research on system support and political legitimacy has to a large extent overlooked the crucial importance of public perceptions of procedural fairness for fostering public support and regime legitimacy. Taking its departure in the theory of procedural fairness, this article challenges the conventional wisdom of earlier research by arguing and demonstrating that public perceptions of procedural fairness and impartiality on behalf of the authorities are the most important determinants of system support in the post‐communist European Union Member States. The empirical analysis lends strong support to the fact that perceptions of fairness and the extent of corruption exercise a strong effect on public support for the performance of the political system and approval of regime principles.
Rheological and Structural Characterization of Ni–SiO2 Nanocomposites Produced by Aqueous Colloidal Processing
Authors: Vieira Luiz E. , Rodrigues Neto João B. , Klein Aloísio N. , Moreno Rodrigo , Hotza Dachamir 
Published: July 2011

In this work, nickel–silica nanocomposites were fabricated via colloidal processing. A rheological approach was used to characterize and to optimize a 30 vol% nickel aqueous suspension with up to 10 vol% SiO2 nanoparticles. The slurries showed a plastic and shear‐thinning behavior that retards sedimentation and facilitates the shaping of compacts. Slips were cast in plaster mold using ammonium polyacrylate as dispersant and tetramethylammonium hydroxide for adjusting the pH at 10.0 ± 0.1. Green bodies were sintered at 900°C for 1 h in flowing argon/5% hydrogen atmosphere. Porous and dense materials were characterized by SEM/FE‐SEM, Archimedes’ densities, and Vicker's microhardness measurements. Composites showed homogeneous microstructure, refined grain size, good densification (15 vol% pores), and hardness up to 250 Hv.
Cx31.1 acts as a tumour suppressor in non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines through inhibition of cell proliferation and metastasis
Authors: Zhang Deqiang , Chen Chengwen , Li Yuan , Fu Xuping , Xie Yi , Li Yao , Huang Yan 
Published: July 2011

AbstractReduced connexin expression and loss of gap junction function is a characteristic of many cancers, including lung cancer. However, there are little reports about the relation between Cx31.1 and lung cancer. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of Cx31.1 on non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We found that the Cx31.1 was down‐regulated in NSCLC cell lines, and the expression levels were reversely related with their metastatic potential. We ectopically expressed Cx31.1 in H1299 NSCLC cell line to examine the influence of Cx31.1 overexpression. The results showed that overexpression of Cx31.1 in H1299 cells reduced cell proliferation, induced a delay in the G1phase, inhibited anchorage‐independent growth and suppressed cell migration and invasion. The cell cycle delay and cell migration and invasion suppressive effects of Cx31.1 were partially reversed by siRNA targeting mRNA of Cx31.1. Moreover, xenografts of Cx31.1 overexpressing H1299 cells showed reduced tumourigenicity. These results suggested that Cx31.1 has tumour‐suppressive properties. Further investigation indicated that cyclin D3 may be responsible for Cx31.1‐induced G1phase delay. Importantly, Cx31.1 increased the expression of epithelial markers, such as cytokeratin 18, and decreased expression of mesenchymal markers, such as vimentin, indicating a Cx31.1‐mediated partial shift from a mesenchymal towards an epithelial phenotype. We concluded that Cx31.1 inhibit the malignant properties of NSCLC cell lines, the mechanisms under this may include regulation of EMT.
Changes in miRNA expression in sera and correlation to duration of disease in patients with multifocal mucosal lichen planus
Authors: Nylander Elisabet , Ebrahimi Majid , Wahlin Ylva‐Britt , Boldrup Linda , Nylander Karin 
Published: July 2011

J Oral Pathol Med (2012) 41: 86–89Background:  Mucosal lichen planus is a severe variant of lichen planus, Lichen planus (LP), which in many ways affect patients’ lives. The aetiology is not fully understood, and there is no treatment clearing the disease once and for all. Oral LP has by the WHO been classified as a precancerous lesion. Micro‐RNAs, miRNAs, are non‐coding, small single‐stranded RNAs involved in biological processes like apoptosis, proliferation, differentiation, metastasis, angiogenesis and immune response.Methods and Results:  In sera from 30 patients with multifocal mucosal LP, 15 miRNAs were identified as significantly differentially expressed compared with controls. The three most up‐regulated miRNAs are all connected to oral squamous cell carcinoma or epithelial carcinoma in general.Discussion:  Even if no specific LP‐associated miRNA profile was found, data clearly indicate that miRNAs could play a role in the earlier phases of lichen planus.
Attitudes towards health‐care robots in a retirement village
Authors: Broadbent Elizabeth , Tamagawa Rie , Patience Anna , Knock Brett , Kerse Ngaire , Day Karen , MacDonald Bruce A 
Published: July 2011

Aim:  This study investigated the attitudes and preferences of staff, residents and relatives of residents in a retirement village towards a health‐care robot.Methods:  Focus groups were conducted with residents, managers and caregivers, and questionnaires were collected from 32 residents, 30 staff and 27 relatives of residents.Results:  The most popular robot tasks were detection of falls and calling for help, lifting, and monitoring location. Robot functionality was more important than appearance. Concerns included the loss of jobs and personal care, while perceived benefits included allowing staff to spend quality time with residents, and helping residents with self‐care. Residents showed a more positive attitude towards robots than both staff and relatives.Conclusions:  These results provide an initial guide for the tasks and appearance appropriate for a robot to provide assistance in aged care facilities and highlight concerns.
Assessing changes in numbers and distribution of large whale entanglements in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada1
Authors: Benjamins Steven , Ledwell Wayne , Huntington Julie , Davidson Anthony Raphael 
Published: July 2011

AbstractEntanglements of large whales in commercial fisheries in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, have been consistently recorded since 1979, as part of a program aimed at releasing captured animals and reducing costs to fishermen. This data set represented an opportunity to identify fisheries posing particular entanglement risks to local whale populations. Data were assessed over the periods 1979–1992 and 1993–2008, corresponding to distinct phases in fisheries distribution and intensity. Between 1979 and 2008, 1,209 large whale entanglements were recorded in Newfoundland and Labrador. These were mostly humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae; 80%) and minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata; 15%). Dramatic declines in reported inshore whale entanglement rates were observed following the 1992 moratorium on Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) fisheries. Recently, more entanglements have been reported further offshore, largely due to expansion of fisheries targeting snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio). For all whale species, entanglement rates and associated mortality rates varied considerably in different fishing gear. Fractions of humpback and minke whales found dead in different fishing gear differed substantially, with minke whales far more likely to be found dead than humpback whales.
Effect of deadwood position on saproxylic beetles in temperate forests and conservation interest of oak snags
Authors: BOUGET CHRISTOPHE , NUSILLARD BENOIT , PINEAU XAVIER , RICOU CHARLES 
Published: July 2011

Abstract.1. Intensive forestry has drastically reduced the volume of standing deadwood, even more than total deadwood volume. It has been demonstrated in boreal forests that snags have a high conservation value for many saproxylic species and that the lying or standing aspect of the deadwood makes a difference. The conservation of saproxylic beetles in the changing deadwood landscape of temperate managed forests depends on a deeper understanding of the ecological value of forest stand legacies.2. Our study questioned whether the retention of oak snags is an important conservation concern in European temperate forests. We analysed the differences in saproxylic beetle fauna between oak snags and logs and explored the diameter effect on log–snag differences. We compared the species composition and richness of saproxylic beetle assemblages in a temperate deciduous forest. Emergence traps were set in a balanced sampling design of 22 ground‐lying logs and 22 oak snags with a range of intermediate decay stages and 2 diameter classes.3. Oak snags yielded more individuals per volume unit and supported more species than logs, and exhibited significantly dissimilar assemblages from logs and hosted original species. Snags, especially large snags, were more interesting for rare beetle species conservation than logs. The feeding guild structure slightly differed between snags and logs. Overall, log–snag differences depended on the diameter class.4. We confirm that saproxylic biodiversity would significantly benefit from forestry measures favouring oak snag retention (especially large snags), even though further multi‐scale studies are necessary to develop quantitative retention guidelines.
State of the Art: Treatment of Bipolar Disorders
Authors: Severus Emanuel , Schaaff Nadine , Möller Hans‐Jürgen 
Published: July 2011

SUMMARYBipolar disorders are lifelong lasting affective disorders, with an episodic course of the illness in most cases. The lifetime prevalence is around 2–5%, the illness usually appears in early adulthood and causes significant impairment in psychosocial functioning. This is a selective review focusing on recent developments and issues of interest in the psychopharmacological treatment of bipolar disorders. It is based primarily on the results of adequately powered, randomised, controlled trials (RCTs). These studies were systematically retrieved by means of a Medline search. The past 10 years have led to a broadening of the psychopharmacological treatment options for bipolar disorders. The proof of efficacy for the combination of fluoxetine/olanzapine as well as quetiapine in the acute treatment of bipolar I depression were important steps. While lithium remains the gold standard in the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorders, valproate, olanzapine, lamotrigine, aripiprazole, and quetiapine have been shown efficacious for this indication, with quetiapine possessing the broadest approval status of all drugs for the different treatment phases of this illness. Despite this progress there remains a huge demand regarding new compounds for nearly every area in the psychopharmacological treatment of bipolar disorders. In addition new methodological approaches regarding the proof of effectiveness in clinical practice are urgently needed.
Fully Cooled Single
Stage HP Transonic Turbine—Part I: Influence of Cooling Mass Flow Variations and Inlet
Temperature Profiles on Blade Internal and External
Aerodynamics
Authors: Haldeman C. W. , Dunn M.
G. , Mathison R. M. 
Published: July 2011

Abstract
A fully cooled turbine stage is utilized to investigate the combined effects of turbine stage cooling variation and high-pressure turbine (HPT) vane inlet temperature profile on the aerodynamics and heat transfer of the turbine stage operating at the proper design corrected conditions. Part I of this paper describes the overall experimental matrix, the influence of the cooling mass flows, and temperature profiles from an aerodynamic perspective. The measurements include internal and external pressures for the blade airfoil. Part II of this paper focuses on the influence of these parameters on the heat transfer to the blade airfoil and the stationary blade shroud. The major results show that cooling levels do not significantly affect the external pressure distributions over the majority of the blade and vane. However, aerodynamic effects of cooling levels and temperature profiles are seen for the vane and blade pressure loading on the suction surfaces. The magnitude of these effects ranges from 5% to 10% of the local measurement for the reference case, which is the uniform inlet profile with nominal cooling for this study. Inlet temperature profiles and cooling levels have comparable impacts on pressure loading, but their relative influence changes with location, and Reynolds number and corrected speed variations have the lowest impact on pressure loading changes, with changes below 5% of the local measurements. Another important result is that unlike uncooled experiments, the proper normalizing variable for pressures aft of the vane is not the inlet pressure but a “rotor reference pressure,” which adjusts the total inlet pressure by the increase in pressure resulting from the additional cooling mass flows. For the rotor, this consists primarily of the vane trailing edge cooling flows. This simplified model accounts for the effects of the vane cooling, and isolates the changes due to blade cooling. The spread of the cooling flows through the stage is important to the surface heat-flux, and has an impact on pressure loadings on the suction surface. The data establishes important guidelines for modelers of cooling flows. The changes observed on the suction side of the airfoils are real, but quite small from an engineering design perspective. Thus the pressure levels are stable and relatively independent of cooling levels, which is critical for good heat-transfer predictions.
Fully Cooled Single
Stage HP Transonic Turbine—Part II: Influence of Cooling Mass Flow Changes and Inlet
Temperature Profiles on Blade and Shroud
Heat-Transfer
Authors: Haldeman C. W. , Dunn M.
G. , Mathison R. M. 
Published: July 2011

Abstract
A fully cooled transonic high-pressure turbine stage is utilized to investigate the combined effects of turbine stage cooling variation and vane inlet temperature profile on heat transfer to the blades with the stage operating at the proper design corrected conditions. For this series of experiments, both the vane row and the blade row were fully cooled. The matrix of experimental conditions included varying the cooling flow rates and the vane inlet temperature profiles to observe the overall effect on airfoil heat-transfer. The data presented in Part I focused on the aerodynamics of the fully cooled turbine for a subset of the cases investigating two vane inlet temperature profiles (uniform and radial) and three different cooling levels (none, nominal, and high) for the high Reynolds number condition. This part of the paper focuses on the time-average heat-flux measurements on the blade and shroud region for the same cooling mass flow rates and vane inlet temperature profiles. The cooling effects are shown to be small and are centered primarily on the suction side of the airfoil. This relatively small influence is due to the ratio of the cooling gas to metal temperature being closer to 1 than the design value would dictate. The vane inlet temperature profile effects are more dominant, and using a net Stanton number reduction factor to compare the cases, an effect on the order of about 0.25 is demonstrated. This effect is due primarily to the change in the reference temperature used for the Stanton number calculation. The differences due to profile effects are small but observable toward the trailing edge of both the blade and rotor shroud. This data set forms an excellent baseline for heat-flux calculations, as the variation in the main input conditions are well documented and do not produce large changes in the heat-flux. It provides insight into the flow physics of an actual engine and guidelines about proper normalization of variables for a cooled turbine stage, supporting further development of computational heat-flux modeling techniques.
A new clinical unit for digital radiography based on a thick amorphous Selenium plate: Physical and psychophysical characterization
Authors: Rivetti Stefano , Lanconelli Nico , Bertolini Marco , Acchiappati Domenico 
Published: July 2011

Purpose:Here, we present a physical and psychophysical characterization of a new clinical unit (named AcSelerate) for digital radiography based on a thick a‐Se layer. We also compared images acquired with and without a software filter (named CRF) developed for reducing sharpness and noise of the images and making them similar to images coming from traditional computed radiography systems.Methods:The characterization was achieved in terms of physical figures of merit [modulation transfer function (MTF), noise power spectra (NPS), detective quantum efficiency (DQE)], and psychophysical parameters (contrast‐detail analysis with an automatic reading of CDRAD images). We accomplished measurements with four standard beam conditions: RAQ3, RQA5, RQA7, and RQA9.Results:The system shows an excellent MTF (about 50% at the Nyquist frequency). The DQE is about 55% at 0.5 lp/mm and above 20% at the Nyquist frequency and is almost independent from exposure. The contrast‐detail curves are comparable to some of the best published data for other systems devoted to imaging in general radiography. The CRF filter influences both the MTF and NPS, but it does lead to very small changes on DQE. Also the visibility of CDRAD details is basically unaltered, when the filter is activated.Conclusions:As normally happens with detector based on direct conversion, the system presents an excellent MTF. The improved efficiency caused by the thick layer allows getting good noise characteristics and DQE results better (about 10% on average) than many of the computed radiography (CR) systems and comparable to those obtained by the best systems for digital radiography available on the market.
Volumetric lean percentage measurement using dual energy mammography
Authors: Ducote Justin L. , Klopfer Michael J. , Molloi S. 
Published: July 2011

Purpose:Currently, there is no accepted standard for measuring breast density. Dual energy mammography, which has demonstrated accurate measurement in phantoms, has been proposed as one possible method. To examine the use of chemical analysis as a possible means to validate breast density measurements from dual energy mammography, a bovine tissue model was investigated. Known quantities of lean and adipose tissue were compared with composition values measured from dual energy images and chemical analysis.Methods:Theoretical simulations were performed to assess the impact variations in breast composition would have on measurement of breast density from a single calibration. Fourteenex‐vivo tissue samples composed of varying amounts of pure lean tissue and pure adipose tissue (lean percentage) from 0 to 100%, in increments of 10%, were imaged using dual energy mammography. This was followed by chemical analysis based on desiccation, trituration, and fat extraction with petroleum ether to determine water, lipid, and protein content. The volumetric lean percentage (VLP) as measured from images (VLPI) and as derived from chemical analysis data (VLPCA) were compared with the VLP calculated from measurements of sample mass with a scale (VLPM). Finally, data from the bovine tissue model in this study were compared to compositional data from a previous report of human tissue composition.Results:The results from simulation suggest a substantial impact on measuring breast density is likely due to changes in anatomical breast composition. VLPI was related to the VLPM by VLPI = 1.53 VLPM + 10.0 (r2>0.99). VLPCA was related to VLPM by VLPCA = 0.76 VLPM + 22.8 (r2>0.99). VLPI was related to VLPCA by VLPI = 2.00 VLPCA − 35.6 (r2>0.99). Bovine adipose tissue was shown to be very similar to human adipose tissue in terms of water, lipid, and protein content with RMS differences of 1.2%. Bovine lean tissue was shown to be very similar to human skeletal muscle tissue and somewhat similar to human mammary gland tissue with RMS differences of 0.4 and 22.2%, respectively.Conclusions:The results of this study show strong linear relationships between volumetric lean percentage measurements using dual energy mammography, chemical analysis and the actual mass. Determining the existence of a relationship between VLPI and VLPCA was necessary before comparing density results from the dual energy technique to composition data from chemical analysis for samples of unknown composition.