bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Coordination of fingertip forces during precision grip in premanifest Huntington's disease
Authors: Rao Ashwini K. , Gordon Andrew M. , Marder Karen S. 
Published: March 2011

AbstractPrecision grip control is important for accurate object manipulation and requires coordination between horizontal (grip) and vertical (load) fingertip forces. Manifest Huntington's disease (HD) subjects demonstrate excessive and highly variable grip force and delayed coordination between grip and load forces. Because the onset of these impairments is unknown, we examined precision grip control in premanifest HD (pre‐HD) subjects. Fifteen pre‐HD and 15 age‐ and sex‐matched controls performed the precision grip task in a seated position. Subjects grasped and lifted an object instrumented with a force transducer that measured horizontal grip and vertical load forces. Outcomes were preload time, loading time, maximum grip force, mean static grip force, and variability for all measures. We compared outcomes across groups and correlated grip measures with the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale and predicted age of onset. Variability of maximum grip force (P < .0001) and variability of static grip force (P < .00001) were higher for pre‐HD subjects. Preload time (P < .007) and variability of preload time (P < .006) were higher in pre‐HD subjects. No differences were seen in loading time across groups. Variability of static grip force (r2 = 0.23) and variability of preload time (r2 = 0.59) increased with predicted onset and were correlated with tests of cognitive function. Our results indicate that pre‐HD patients have poor regulation of the transition between reach and grasp and higher variability in force application and temporal coordination during the precision grip task. Force and temporal variability may be good markers of disease severity because they were correlated with predicted onset of disease. © 2011 Movement Disorder Society
Single scan PC‐MRI by alternating the velocity encoding gradient polarity between phase encoding steps
Authors: Jonathan Bremer , Liu Qingwei , Steele Brooke , Lucas Carol , Dennis Robert , Lin Weili 
Published: March 2011

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to develop a faster approach to phase contrast magnetic resonance imaging. This article proposes a phase contrast imaging scheme called single scan phase contrast in which the polarity of the velocity‐encoding gradient is alternated between phase encoding steps. In single scan phase contrast, ghost images due to moving spins form. The signal intensity of the ghost images is modulated by the sine of the motion‐induce phase shift. Prior to image acquisition, the region of interest containing moving spins is identified, and the field of view is configured so to avoid overlap between the object in the image and the ghost image(s) due to motion in the region of interest. The image values of the region of interest and the ghost image are used to quantify velocity. At best, single scan phase contrast reduces the total acquisition time by a factor of two when compared to phase contrast. In this study, single scan phase contrast is validated against phase contrast in phantom and in vivo. Magn Reson Med, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Is pelvic pain associated with defecatory symptoms in women with pelvic organ prolapse?
Authors: Asfaw Tirsit S. , Saks Emily K. , Northington Gina M. , Arya Lily A. 
Published: March 2011

AbstractObjectiveTo investigate the significance of pelvic pain and its association with defecatory symptoms in women with pelvic organ prolapse (POP).Study DesignThis is a cross sectional study of 248 women with stage II POP or greater. Women were stratified into “pain” and “no‐pain” groups based on their response to a question on the Pelvic Floor Distress Inventory short form. Associations between patient demographics, exam findings and responses to validated questionnaires were evaluated.ResultsIn women with POP, defecatory symptoms are significantly more common in women with pelvic pain including straining with bowel movement (OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.3, 4.6), sense of incomplete emptying (OR 4.4, 95% CI 2.3, 8.2), pain with bowel movement (OR 5.3, 95% CI 1.2, 23.0) and splinting with bowel movement (OR 3.8, 95% CI 2.0, 7.5).ConclusionIn women with POP, the symptom of pelvic pain is associated with the presence of defecatory symptoms. Neurourol. Urodynam. 30:1305–1308, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Edge‐superconnectivity of semiregular cages with odd girth
Authors: Balbuena C. , González‐moreno D. , Salas J. 
Published: March 2011

AbstractA graph is said to be edge‐superconnected if each minimum edge‐cut consists of all the edges incident with some vertex of minimum degree. A graph G is said to be a
$\{d,d+1\}$‐semiregular graph if all its vertices have degree either d or $d+1$. A smallest $\{d,d+1\}$‐semiregular graph G with girth g is said to be a $(\{d,d+1\};g)$‐cage. We show that every $(\{d,d+1\};g)$‐cage with odd girth g is edge‐superconnected. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, 2011
Approximation algorithms for distance constrained vehicle routing problems
Authors: Nagarajan Viswanath , Ravi R. 
Published: March 2011

AbstractWe study the distance constrained vehicle routing problem (DVRP) (Laporte et al., Networks 14 (1984), 47–61, Li et al., Oper Res 40 (1992), 790–799): given a set of vertices in a metric space, a specified depot, and a distance bound D, find a minimum cardinality set of tours originating at the depot that covers all vertices, such that each tour has length at most D. This problem is NP‐complete, even when the underlying metric is induced by a weighted star. Our main result is a 2‐approximation algorithm for DVRP on tree metrics; we also show that no approximation factor better than 1.5 is possible unless P = NP. For the problem on general metrics, we present a
$(O(\log {1 \over \varepsilon }),1 + \varepsilon )$‐bicriteria approximation algorithm: i.e., for any ε > 0, it obtains a solution violating the length bound by a 1 + ε factor while using at most $O(\log {1 \over \varepsilon })$ times the optimal number of vehicles. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, 2012
An auxiliary space preconditioner for linear elasticity based on the generalized finite element method
Authors: Brannick James , Cho Durkbin 
Published: March 2011

SUMMARYWe construct and analyze a preconditioner of the linear elasticity system discretized by conforming linear finite elements in the framework of the auxiliary space method. The auxiliary space preconditioner is based on two auxiliary spaces corresponding to discretizations of the scalar Poisson equation by linear finite elements and the generalized finite element method. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A new parallel sparse direct solver: Presentation and numerical experiments in large‐scale structural mechanics parallel computing
Authors: Guèye I. , Arem S. El , Feyel F. , Roux F.‐X. , Cailletaud G. 
Published: March 2011

AbstractThe main purpose of this work is to present a new parallel direct solver: Dissection solver. It is based on LU factorization of the sparse matrix of the linear system and allows to detect automatically and handle properly the zero‐energy modes, which are important when dealing with DDM. A performance evaluation and comparisons with other direct solvers (MUMPS, DSCPACK) are also given for both sequential and parallel computations. Results of numerical experiments with a two‐level parallelization of large‐scale structural analysis problems are also presented: FETI is used for the global problem parallelization and Dissection for the local multithreading. In this framework, the largest problem we have solved is of an elastic solid composed of 400 subdomains running on 400 computation nodes (3200 cores) and containing about 165 millions dof. The computation of one single iteration consumes less than 20 min of CPU time. Several comparisons to MUMPS are given for the numerical computation of large‐scale linear systems on a massively parallel cluster: performances and weaknesses of this new solver are highlighted. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The meshless Galerkin boundary node method for Stokes problems in three dimensions
Authors: Li Xiaolin 
Published: March 2011

AbstractThe Galerkin boundary node method (GBNM) is a boundary only meshless method that combines an equivalent variational formulation of boundary integral equations for governing equations and the moving least‐squares (MLS) approximations for generating the trial and test functions. In this approach, boundary conditions can be implemented directly and easily despite of the fact that the MLS shape functions lack the delta function property. Besides, the resulting formulation inherits the symmetry and positive definiteness of the variational problems. The GBNM is developed in this paper for solving three‐dimensional stationary incompressible Stokes flows in primitive variables. The numerical scheme is based on variational formulations for the first‐kind integral equations, which are valid for both interior and exterior problems simultaneously. A rigorous error analysis and convergence study of the method for both the velocity and the pressure is presented in Sobolev spaces. The capability of the method is also illustrated and assessed through some selected numerical examples. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Effect of drawing on the molecular orientation, polymorphism, and properties of melt‐spun nanocomposite fibers based on nylon 6 with polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane, montmorillonite, and their combination
Authors: Magniez Kevin , Fox Bronwyn Louise , Lonney Mark Graham 
Published: March 2011

AbstractIn this work, binary and ternary nanocomposite systems based on nylon 6 with montmorillonite (MMT), polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS), and their combination were prepared using a melt‐compounding process. In the transmission electron microscope (TEM) images, the MMT was found to be generally well dispersed in all materials resulting in its good chemical compatibility with nylon 6, affording intercalated disordered microstructures. On the other hand, the TEM images showed that POSS formed micron‐size crystalline agglomerates possibly resulting from a lack in chemical compatibility with nylon 6. These nanocomposite systems were melt‐spun into fibers, and the relevant structure–property relationships that occur during the cold drawing process was established by correlating the tensile properties to the changes in crystallinity, polymorphic crystal forms, and molecular orientation. The properties of the resulting fibers were found to be rather skewed and significantly affected by the polymer/nanoparticles interface. The agglomeration of POSS and POSS–MMT particles coupled with the weak nylon 6/POSS interface, reflected on the tensile properties of the nylon 6/POSS and nylon 6/MMT‐POSS fibers which underperformed. Some nanocomposite fiber systems offered significant improvements in modulus without excessively compromising the extensibility of the fibers. POLYM. COMPOS., 2011. © 2011 Society of Plastics Engineers
Maternal serum adiponectin at 11 to 13 weeks of gestation in the prediction of macrosomia
Authors: Nanda Surabhi , Akolekar Ranjit , Sarquis Rita , Mosconi Ana Paula , Nicolaides Kypros H. 
Published: March 2011

AbstractObjectiveTo examine the potential role of maternal serum level of adiponectin in the first trimester of pregnancy in the prediction of neonatal macrosomia.MethodsMaternal serum adiponectin concentration was measured in a case–control study of singleton pregnancies at 11 to 13 weeks' gestation, which included 50 cases that subsequently delivered macrosomic neonates with birth weight above the 95th percentile for gestation at delivery and 300 controls who delivered appropriate for gestational age neonates. The median multiple of the median (MoM) serum adiponectin in the two outcome groups was compared and the bivariate Gaussian distributions were simulated in a screened population of 33 344 pregnancies to estimate the performance of screening for macrosomia by a combination of maternal characteristics and obstetric history with serum adiponectin.ResultsIn the macrosomic group the median serum adiponectin [0.82, interquartile range (IQR): 0.56–1.02 MoM] was significantly lower than in the non‐macrosomic controls (1.02, IQR: 0.70–1.29 MoM; p = 0.001). The estimated detection rate of macrosomia, at fixed false positive rate of 10%, from maternal characteristics and obstetric history was 34.6% and this increased to 38.2% with the addition of serum adiponectin.ConclusionMaternal serum adiponectin at 11 to 13 weeks is a useful biomarker for early prediction of macrosomia. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The work of a dedicated inpatient diabetes care team in a district general hospital
Authors: Brooks AP , Li Voon Chong JSW , Grainger‐Allen S , McDonald M , Nero S , Atkin M , Deshmukh S 
Published: March 2011

AbstractWe describe the work of a multidisciplinary inpatient diabetes care team in a 400 bed district general hospital over a four‐year period. Also included are some observations on a positive contribution to reduced length of stay for people with diabetes in hospital, and low incidences of prescription and management errors in the first National Diabetes Inpatient Audit in 2009.Specifically between 2005 and 2007 the average length of stay in days for all patients whose diagnosis included diabetes fell from 9.39 to 3.76 days despite the total number of patients increasing from 507 to 633 over the same quarter each year. The inpatient team provided almost 1000 visits to patients with diabetes in the first six months of each year 2008 and 2009, and at the first National Diabetes Inpatient Audit had only 5% prescription errors and 3% management errors (versus 19% and 14% respectively nationally) with 100% appropriate blood glucose testing.We suggest that a dedicated inpatient diabetes care team raises the quality of care for patients and enhances patient and professional education; we also suggest that audit standards should be developed for inpatient diabetes care and assessed in future national audits. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons.
The surgical panacea for diabetes: time for diabetologists to discriminate facts from fiction and flights of fantasy
Authors: Pinkney J 
Published: March 2011

AbstractBariatric surgery is an important treatment for obesity and most patients enjoy substantial improvements in coexisting type 2 diabetes (T2D). As a result of the historic failure to establish relevant long‐term controlled trials, however, there is a need to separate evidence from unfounded belief. The short‐term impact, operative morbidity and mortality rates, and potential long‐term surgical and metabolic side effects of most (but not all) of the common forms of bariatric surgery are reasonably well described. In contrast, the longer‐term evidence base for applying bariatric surgery as an approach to treating T2D is much weaker. While bariatric surgery may have a prolonged beneficial effect on hyperglycaemia, it also has risks, and its economics and sustainability are unproven. At the more fanciful end of opinion is a mismatch between expectation and reality, with the risk that patients' expectations may be unrealistically raised. Long‐term relapse of weight and hyperglycaemia are well‐recognised and patients who choose these treatments will never be free of medical supervision.The only way to guarantee that appropriate patients with T2D are safely selected for bariatric surgery, offered an appropriate choice of evidence‐based procedures, and receive appropriate immediate and long‐term postoperative medical care is for diabetologists to take on this mantle of responsibility. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons.
The implications of propensity score variable selection strategies in pharmacoepidemiology: an empirical illustration
Authors: Patrick Amanda R. , Schneeweiss Sebastian , Brookhart M. Alan , Glynn Robert J. , Rothman Kenneth J. , Avorn Jerry , Stürmer Til 
Published: March 2011

ABSTRACTPurposeTo examine the effect of variable selection strategies on the performance of propensity score (PS) methods in a study of statin initiation, mortality, and hip fracture assuming a true mortality reduction of < 15% and no effect on hip fracture.MethodsWe compared seniors initiating statins with seniors initiating glaucoma medications. Out of 202 covariates with a prevalence > 5%, PS variable selection strategies included none, a priori, factors predicting exposure, and factors predicting outcome. We estimated hazard ratios (HRs) for statin initiation on mortality and hip fracture from Cox models controlling for various PSs.ResultsDuring 1 year follow‐up, 2693 of 55 610 study subjects died and 496 suffered a hip fracture. The crude HR for statin initiators was 0.64 for mortality and 0.46 for hip fracture. Adjusting for the non‐parsimonious PS yielded effect estimates of 0.83 (95%CI:0.75–0.93) and 0.72 (95%CI:0.56–0.93). Including in the PS only covariates associated with a greater than 20% increase or reduction in outcome rates yielded effect estimates of 0.84 (95%CI:0.75–0.94) and 0.76 (95%CI:0.61–0.95), which were closest to the effects predicted from randomized trials.ConclusionDue to the difficulty of pre‐specifying all potential confounders of an exposure‐outcome association, data‐driven approaches to PS variable selection may be useful. Selecting covariates strongly associated with exposure but unrelated to outcome should be avoided, because this may increase bias. Selecting variables for PS based on their association with the outcome may help to reduce such bias. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Transcriptional and proteomic profiling of flatfish (Solea senegalensis) spermatogenesis
Authors: Forné Ignasi , Castellana Bárbara , Marín‐Juez Rubén , Cerdà Joan , Abián Joaquín , Planas Josep V. 
Published: March 2011

AbstractThe Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis) is a marine flatfish of high economic value and a target species for aquaculture. The efforts to reproduce this species in captivity have been hampered by the fact that farmed males (F1) often show lower sperm production and fertilization capacity than wild‐type males (F0). Our knowledge on spermatogenesis is however limited to a few studies. In a previous work, we identified by 2‐D DIGE several potential protein markers in testis for the poor reproductive performance of F1 males. Therefore, the objectives of the present study were, first, to investigate changes in genes and proteins expressed in the testis throughout spermatogenesis in F0 males by using a combination of transcriptomic and proteomic approaches and, second, to further compare the testis proteome between late spermatogenic stages of F0 and F1 fish to identify potential indicators of hampered reproductive performance in F1 fish. We identified approximately 400 genes and 49 proteins that are differentially expressed during the progression of spermatogenesis and that participate in processes such as transcriptional activation, the ubiquitin–proteasome system, sperm maturation and motility or cytoskeletal remodeling. Interestingly, a number of these proteins differed in abundance between F0 and F1 fish, pointing toward alterations in cytoskeleton, sperm motility, the ubiquitin–proteasome system and the redox state during spermiogenesis as possible causes for the decreased fertility of F1 fish.
Comparative proteomic analysis of canola leaves under salinity stress
Authors: Bandehagh Ali , Salekdeh Ghasem Hosseini , Toorchi Mahmoud , Mohammadi Abolghasem , Komatsu Setsuko 
Published: March 2011

AbstractAlthough canola is a moderately salt‐tolerant species, its growth, seed yield, and oil production are markedly reduced under salt stress, particularly during the early vegetative growth stage. To identify the mechanisms of salt responsiveness in canola, the proteins expressed in the second and third newly developed leaves of salt‐tolerant, Hyola 308, and salt‐sensitive, Sarigol, cultivars were analyzed. Plants were exposed to 0, 175, and 350 mM NaCl during the vegetative stage. An increase in the Na content and a reduction in growth were observed in the third leaves compared to the second leaves. The accumulation of Na was more pronounced in the salt‐sensitive compared with the salt‐tolerant genotype. Out of 900 protein spots detected on 2‐DE gels, 44 and 31 proteins were differentially expressed in the tolerant and susceptible genotypes, respectively. Cluster analysis based on the expression level of total and responsive proteins indicated that the second leaves had a discriminator role between the two genotypes at both salinity levels. Using MS analysis, 46 proteins could be identified including proteins involved in responses to oxidative stress, energy production, electron transport, translation, and photosynthesis. Our results suggest that these proteins might play roles in canola adaptation to salt stress.
Dynamics of post‐translational modifications and protein stability in the stroma of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii chloroplasts
Authors: Bienvenut Willy V. , Espagne Christelle , Martinez Aude , Majeran Wojetec , Valot Benoît , Zivy Michel , Vallon Olivier , Adam Zach , Meinnel Thierry , Giglione Carmela 
Published: March 2011

AbstractThe proteome of any system is a dynamic entity dependent on the intracellular concentration of the entire set of expressed proteins. In turn, this whole protein concentration will be reliant on the stability/turnover of each protein as dictated by their relative rates of synthesis and degradation. In this study, we have investigated the dynamics of the stromal proteome in the model organism Chlamydomonas reinhardtii by characterizing the half‐life of the whole set of proteins. 2‐DE stromal proteins profiling was set up and coupled with MS analyses. These identifications featuring an average of 26% sequence coverage and eight non‐redundant peptides per protein have been obtained for 600 independent samples related to 253 distinct spots. An interactive map of the global stromal proteome, of 274 distinct protein variants is now available on‐line at http://www.isv.cnrs‐gif.fr/gel2dv2/. N‐α‐terminal‐Acetylation (NTA) was noticed to be the most frequently detectable post‐translational modification, and new experimental data related to the chloroplastic transit peptide cleavage site was obtained. Using this data set supplemented with series of pulse‐chase experiments, elements directing the relationship between half‐life and N‐termini were analyzed. Positive correlation between NTA and protein half‐life suggests that NTA could contribute to protein stabilization in the stroma.