bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
When curriculum‐based, technology‐enhanced field experiences and teacher inquiry coalesce: An opportunity for conceptual change?
Authors: Dawson Kara , Dana Nancy Fichtman 
Published: June 2006

AbstractNational agencies advocate the use of field experiences to help prepare teachers to integrate technology in their classrooms. However, prospective teachers often fail to synthesise the integration of technology with the complexities of teaching during such experiences. This study suggests teacher inquiry, a strategy for helping educators systematically and intentionally study their own practice, provides important benefits for prospective teachers participating in curriculum‐based, technology‐enhanced field experiences.Specifically, this study explores whether or not engagement in teacher inquiry can promote conceptual change related to teaching with technology. Thirteen inquiries conducted by prospective teachers in six elementary schools were analysed and one instrumental case was identified. The case exemplifies how curriculum‐based, technology‐enhanced field experiences and teacher inquiry may coalesce to support conceptual change for prospective teachers. In fact, the marriage of curriculum‐based, technology‐enhanced field experiences and teacher inquiry embodies research‐based conditions necessary for conceptual change.Teacher inquiry is widely recognised and supported in the general teacher education literature yet its use by prospective teachers in curriculum‐based, technology‐enhanced field experiences is novel. This exploratory study highlights its potential and encourages further research into its usefulness as a tool to prepare the next generation of teachers to be effective technology‐using educators.
Mating patterns and reproductive success in captive koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus)
Authors: Bercovitch F. B. , Tobey J. R. , Andrus C. H. , Doyle L. 
Published: June 2006

AbstractWe analyzed 18 years of data collected from a breeding colony of captive koalas Phascolarctos cinereus in order to identify factors regulating mating success and to generate expectations about the behavioral ecology of wild koalas. Short‐term mate fidelity was associated with reproductive success, but familiarity appeared to diminish reproductive output with time. Male body mass had no effect on reproductive success. Reproductive output was highest when males were slightly older than females. Survivorship of joeys was not dependent on either male or female age. We suggest that sexual selection regulates koala mating tactics primarily in the context of non‐agonistic male competition. We hypothesize that field studies will reveal that females in the wild probably capitalize on the link between male vocal and olfactory advertisements and male age as a mechanism to foster positive assortative mating by age.
Effect of Er:YAG and Diode lasers on the adhesion of blood components and on the morphology of irradiated root surfaces
Authors: Theodoro Letícia Helena , Sampaio José Eduardo C. , Haypek Patrícia , Bachmann Luciano , Zezell Denise Maria , Garcia Valdir Gouveia 
Published: June 2006

Objective:  The aim of this study was to evaluate in vitro, by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), the adhesion of blood components on root surfaces irradiated with Er:YAG (2.94 µm) and GaAlAs Diode (808 nm) lasers and the effects on the morphology of irradiated root surfaces.Methods:  One hundred samples of human teeth were obtained. They were previously planed and scaled with manual instruments and divided into five groups of 20 samples each: G1 (control group) – absence of treatment; G2 – Er:YAG laser (7.6 J/cm2); G3 – Er:YAG laser (12.9 J/cm2); G4 – Diode laser (90 J/cm2) and G5 – Diode laser (108 J/cm2). After these treatments, 10 samples of each group received a blood tissue but the remaining 10 did not. After laboratory treatments, the samples were obtained by SEM, the photomicrographs were analysed by the score of adhesion of blood components and the results were statistically analysed (Kruskall–Wallis and Mann–Whitney test).Results:  In relation to the adhesion of blood components, the study showed no significant differences between the control group and the groups treated with Er:YAG laser (p = 0.9633 and 0.6229). Diode laser radiation was less effective than control group and Er:YAG laser radiation (p < 0.01).Conclusions:  None of the proposed treatments increased the adhesion of blood components in a significant way when compared to the control group. Although the Er:YAG laser did not interfere in the adhesion of blood components, it caused more changes on the root surface, whereas the Diode laser inhibited the adhesion.
Changing Paradigms from a Historical DSM-III and DSM-IV View Toward an Evidence-Based Definition of Premature Ejaculation. Part I—Validity of DSM-IV-TR
Authors: Waldinger Marcel D. , Schweitzer Dave H. 
Published: June 2006

ABSTRACT

Background
In former days, information obtained from randomized well-controlled clinical trials and epidemiological studies on premature ejaculation (PE) was not available, thereby hampering the efforts of the consecutive DSM Work Groups on Sexual Disorders to formulate an evidence-based definition of PE. The current DSM-IV-TR definition of PE is still nonevidence based. In addition, the requirement that persistent self-perceived PE, distress, and interpersonal difficulties, in absence of a quantified ejaculation time, are necessary to establish the diagnosis remains disputable.

Aim
To investigate the validity and reliability of DSM and ICD diagnosis of premature ejaculation.

Methods
The historical development of DSM and ICD classification of mental disorders is critically reviewed, and two studies using the DSM-IV-TR definition of PE is critically reanalyzed.

Results
Reanalysis of two studies using the DSM-IV-TR definition of PE has shown that DSM-diagnosed PE can be accompanied by long intravaginal ejaculation latency time (IELT) values. The reanalysis revealed a low positive predictive value for the DSM-IV-TR definition when used as a diagnostic test. A similar situation pertains to the American Urological Association (AUA) definition of PE, which is practically a copy of the DSM-IV-TR definition.

Conclusion
It should be emphasized that any evidence-based definition of PE needs objectively collected patient-reported outcome (PRO) data from epidemiological studies, as well as reproducible quantifications of the IELT.
Dispersal of gaseous circumstellar discs around high-mass stars
Authors: Shen Yue , Lou Yu-Qing 
Published: June 2006

Abstract
We study the dispersal of a gaseous disc surrounding a central high-mass stellar core once this circumstellar disc becomes fully ionized. If the stellar and surrounding extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and X-ray radiation are so strong as to rapidly heat up and ionize the entire circumstellar disc as further facilitated by disc magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence, a shock can be driven to travel outward in the fully ionized disc, behind which the disc expands and thins. For an extremely massive and powerful stellar core, the ionized gas pressure overwhelms the centrifugal and gravitational forces in the disc. In this limit, we construct self-similar shock solutions for such an expansion and depletion phase. As a significant amount of circumstellar gas is removed, the relic disc becomes vulnerable to strong stellar winds and fragments into clumps. We speculate that disc disappearance happens rapidly, perhaps on a time-scale of ∼103-104 yr, once the disc becomes entirely ionized sometime after the onset of thermal nuclear burning in a high-mass stellar core.
The Expanding Use of DNA in Law Enforcement: What Role for Privacy?
Authors: Rothstein Mark A. , Talbott Meghan K. 
Published: June 2006

DNA identification methods are such an established part of our law enforcement and criminal justice systems it is hard to believe that the technologies were developed as recently as the mid-1980s, and that the databases of law enforcement profiles were established in the 1990s. Although the first databases were limited to the DNA profiles of convicted rapists and murderers, the success of these databases in solving violent crimes provided the impetus for Congress and state legislatures to expand the scope of the databases with little critical examination of each expansion's value to law enforcement or cost to privacy and civil liberties.We are now entering a new stage of DNA forensics, in which successive database expansions over the last decade have raised the possibility of creating a population-wide repository. In addition, new applications of DNA profiling, including familial and low stringency searches, have been added to DNA dragnets, the use of medical samples for forensic analysis, and other measures to create a series of crucial, yet largely unexplored, second-generation legal and policy issues.
Retention of Offender DNA Samples Necessary to Ensure and Monitor Quality of Forensic DNA Efforts: Appropriate Safeguards Exist to Protect the DNA Samples from Misuse
Authors: Herkenham M. Dawn 
Published: June 2006

The topic of offender DNA databases and the retention of offender's DNA samples are issues that continue to generate debate between privacy advocates and forensic DNA scientists. Considered previously by both the Federal DNA Advisory Board and the National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence, recommendations were made that the existing statutory frameworks were sufficient to protect the confidentiality and use of the DNA samples solely for forensic identification purposes and that the issue be revisited. Now, approximately five years since these debates, privacy advocates and forensic scientists retain divergent views on this issue. This brief essay is not intended to fuel the debate, but rather, to describe the protections and safeguards currently in place for the protection of the offender DNA samples.Surrounding the discussion of the sample retention issue are the underlying principles for the establishment of the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) Program and the National DNA Index System (NDIS).
Fiduciary Obligation in Clinical Research
Authors: Miller Paul B. , Weijer Charles 
Published: June 2006

Bioethics is currently witnessing unprecedented debate over the moral and legal norms governing the conduct of clinical research. At the center of this debate is the duty of care in clinical research, and its most widely accepted specification, clinical equipoise. In recent work, we have argued that equipoise and cognate concepts central to the ethics of clinical research have been left unnecessarily vulnerable to criticism. We have suggested that the vulnerability lies in the conspicuous absence of an articulated foundation in moral and legal theory of the physician-researcher's duty of care to the patient-subject. We have repeatedly suggested that the requisite foundation is in the ethics of trust and the law of fiduciaries.Curiously, despite the absence of a published thorough exposition of our position, some have preemptively criticized our suggestion that the relationship between physician-researcher and patient-subject is fiduciary. Others have offered their own accounts of the implications of fiduciary law for the relationship.
Compliance Analysis of a Three-Legged Rigidly-Connected Platform
Device
Authors: Dai Jian S. , Ding Xilun 
Published: June 2006

Abstract
The platform based vibratory bowl feeders are essential elements in automatic assembly. Taking the bowl feeder as a typical three-legged rigidly connected compliant platform device, this paper applies von Mises’ compliance matrix to each of the leaf-spring legs, establishes screw systems of the legs and develops the Jacobian of the platform using the adjoint transformation. Based on the force equilibrium between the supporting and external wrenches and the twist deflection, a platform compliance matrix is proposed as a congruence transformation of the legs’ compliance matrices. The matrix is then decomposed into a central compliance matrix and an adjoint transformation, leading to the decomposition of the legs’ parameter effect from the platform assembly influence. The analysis presents the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of the twist deflection that is equivalent to the characteristics equation of the compliant platform. Further based on the eigencompliances and eigentwist decomposition, the legs’ parameter effect and the platform assembly parameter influence are identified. This reveals the compliance characteristics of this type of devices and the parameters’ effect on the compliance and presents a suitable parameter range for design of the compliant platform device.
Probabilistic Analytical Target Cascading: A Moment Matching
Formulation for Multilevel Optimization Under Uncertainty
Authors: Liu Huibin , Chen Wei , Kokkolaras Michael , Papalambros Panos Y. , Kim Harrison M. 
Published: June 2006

Abstract
Analytical target cascading (ATC) is a methodology for hierarchical multilevel system design optimization. In previous work, the deterministic ATC formulation was extended to account for random variables represented by expected values to be matched among subproblems and thus ensure design consistency. In this work, the probabilistic formulation is augmented to allow the introduction and matching of additional probabilistic characteristics. A particular probabilistic analytical target cascading (PATC) formulation is proposed that matches the first two moments of interrelated responses and linking variables. Several implementation issues are addressed, including representation of probabilistic design targets, matching responses and linking variables under uncertainty, and coordination strategies. Analytical and simulation-based optimal design examples are used to illustrate the new formulation. The accuracy of the proposed PATC formulation is demonstrated by comparing PATC results to those obtained using a probabilistic all-in-one formulation.
Precipitation and Latent Heating Distributions from Satellite Passive Microwave Radiometry. Part I: Improved Method and Uncertainties
Authors: Olson William S. , Kummerow Christian D. , Yang Song , Petty Grant W. , Tao Wei-Kuo , Bell Thomas L. , Braun Scott A. , Wang Yansen , Lang Stephen E. , Johnson Daniel E. , Chiu Christine 
Published: June 2006

Abstract
A revised Bayesian algorithm for estimating surface rain rate, convective rain proportion, and latent heating profiles from satellite-borne passive microwave radiometer observations over ocean backgrounds is described. The algorithm searches a large database of cloud-radiative model simulations to find cloud profiles that are radiatively consistent with a given set of microwave radiance measurements. The properties of these radiatively consistent profiles are then composited to obtain best estimates of the observed properties. The revised algorithm is supported by an expanded and more physically consistent database of cloud-radiative model simulations. The algorithm also features a better quantification of the convective and nonconvective contributions to total rainfall, a new geographic database, and an improved representation of background radiances in rain-free regions. Bias and random error estimates are derived from applications of the algorithm to synthetic radiance data, based upon a subset of cloud-resolving model simulations, and from the Bayesian formulation itself. Synthetic rain-rate and latent heating estimates exhibit a trend of high (low) bias for low (high) retrieved values. The Bayesian estimates of random error are propagated to represent errors at coarser time and space resolutions, based upon applications of the algorithm to TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) data. Errors in TMI instantaneous rain-rate estimates at 0.5°-resolution range from approximately 50% at 1 mm h−1 to 20% at 14 mm h−1. Errors in collocated spaceborne radar rain-rate estimates are roughly 50%–80% of the TMI errors at this resolution. The estimated algorithm random error in TMI rain rates at monthly, 2.5° resolution is relatively small (less than 6% at 5 mm day−1) in comparison with the random error resulting from infrequent satellite temporal sampling (8%–35% at the same rain rate). Percentage errors resulting from sampling decrease with increasing rain rate, and sampling errors in latent heating rates follow the same trend. Averaging over 3 months reduces sampling errors in rain rates to 6%–15% at 5 mm day−1, with proportionate reductions in latent heating sampling errors.
Precipitation and Latent Heating Distributions from Satellite Passive Microwave Radiometry. Part II: Evaluation of Estimates Using Independent Data
Authors: Yang Song , Olson William S. , Wang Jian-Jian , Bell Thomas L. , Smith Eric A. , Kummerow Christian D. 
Published: June 2006

Abstract
Rainfall rate estimates from spaceborne microwave radiometers are generally accepted as reliable by a majority of the atmospheric science community. One of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) facility rain-rate algorithms is based upon passive microwave observations from the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI). In Part I of this series, improvements of the TMI algorithm that are required to introduce latent heating as an additional algorithm product are described. Here, estimates of surface rain rate, convective proportion, and latent heating are evaluated using independent ground-based estimates and satellite products. Instantaneous, 0.5°-resolution estimates of surface rain rate over ocean from the improved TMI algorithm are well correlated with independent radar estimates (r ∼0.88 over the Tropics), but bias reduction is the most significant improvement over earlier algorithms. The bias reduction is attributed to the greater breadth of cloud-resolving model simulations that support the improved algorithm and the more consistent and specific convective/stratiform rain separation method utilized. The bias of monthly 2.5°-resolution estimates is similarly reduced, with comparable correlations to radar estimates. Although the amount of independent latent heating data is limited, TMI-estimated latent heating profiles compare favorably with instantaneous estimates based upon dual-Doppler radar observations, and time series of surface rain-rate and heating profiles are generally consistent with those derived from rawinsonde analyses. Still, some biases in profile shape are evident, and these may be resolved with (a) additional contextual information brought to the estimation problem and/or (b) physically consistent and representative databases supporting the algorithm. A model of the random error in instantaneous 0.5°-resolution rain-rate estimates appears to be consistent with the levels of error determined from TMI comparisons with collocated radar. Error model modifications for nonraining situations will be required, however. Sampling error represents only a portion of the total error in monthly 2.5°-resolution TMI estimates; the remaining error is attributed to random and systematic algorithm errors arising from the physical inconsistency and/or nonrepresentativeness of cloud-resolving-model-simulated profiles that support the algorithm.
TLR agonists promote ERK-mediated preferential IL-10 production of regulatory dendritic cells (diffDCs), leading to NK-cell activation
Authors: Qian Cheng , Jiang Xiaodong , An Huazhang , Yu Yizhi , Guo Zhenhong , Liu Shuxun , Xu Hongmei , Cao Xuetao 
Published: June 2006

AbstractRegulatory dendritic cells (DCs) play an important role in maintaining peripheral tolerance or immune homeostasis. Our previous study demonstrated that mature DCs could be driven by splenic stroma to proliferate and differentiate into a novel subset of regulatory DCs (diffDCs) displaying a Th2-biased cytokine profile. However, the underlying mechanisms for the unique cytokine profile of diffDCs and how diffDCs regulate the innate and adaptive immunity in response to toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists remain unclear. Here, we report that unlike immature DCs, diffDCs secrete more interleukin 10 (IL-10) but little IL-12p70 in response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or other TLR agonists. Up-regulation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK1/2) activation was shown to be responsible for IL-10 preferential production, and suppression of p38 activation was for impaired IL-12p70 production in diffDCs. Interestingly, LPS treatment could not reverse the inhibitory effect of diffDCs on the proliferation of antigen-specific CD4+ T cells. However, diffDCs could activate natural killer (NK) cells through diffDC-derived IL-10, and even more markedly after stimulation of TLR agonists. These diffDC-activated NK cells could in turn kill surrounding diffDCs. Our results illuminate signal pathways for the unique cytokine profile of diffDCs, and diffDCs can exert their regulatory function even after inflammatory stimuli, thus reflecting one way for strict regulation of immune response.
Current concepts in the pathophysiology and treatment of aplastic anemia
Authors: Young Neal S. , Calado Rodrigo T. , Scheinberg Phillip 
Published: June 2006

AbstractAplastic anemia, an unusual hematologic disease, is the paradigm of the human bone marrow failure syndromes. Almost universally fatal just a few decades ago, aplastic anemia can now be cured or ameliorated by stem-cell transplantation or immunosuppressive drug therapy. The pathophysiology is immune mediated in most cases, with activated type 1 cytotoxic T cells implicated. The molecular basis of the aberrant immune response and deficiencies in hematopoietic cells is now being defined genetically; examples are telomere repair gene mutations in the target cells and dysregulated T-cell activation pathways. Immunosuppression with antithymocyte globulins and cyclosporine is effective at restoring blood-cell production in the majority of patients, but relapse and especially evolution of clonal hematologic diseases remain problematic. Allogeneic stem-cell transplant from histocompatible sibling donors is curative in the great majority of young patients with severe aplastic anemia; the major challenges are extending the benefits of transplantation to patients who are older or who lack family donors. Recent results with alternative sources of stem cells and a variety of conditioning regimens to achieve their engraftment have been promising, with survival in small pediatric case series rivaling conventional transplantation results.
Identification of an immunogenic CD8+ T-cell epitope derived from γ-globin, a putative tumor-associated antigen for juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia
Authors: Hirano Naoto , Butler Marcus O. , Xia Zhinan , Berezovskaya Alla , Murray Andrew P. , Ansén Sascha , Kojima Seiji , Nadler Lee M. 
Published: June 2006

AbstractJuvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML) is a rare clonal myeloproliferative disorder. Although allogeneic stem cell transplantation can induce long-term remissions, relapse rates remain high and innovative approaches are needed. Since donor lymphocyte infusions have clinical activity in JMML, T-cell-mediated immunotherapy could provide a nonredundant treatment approach to compliment current therapies. γ-Globin, an oncofetal protein overexpressed by clonogenic JMML cells, may serve as a target of an antitumor immune response. We predicted 5 γ-globin-derived peptides as potential human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-A2 restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes and showed that 4 (g031, g071, g105, and g106) bind A2 molecules in vitro. Using an artificial antigen-presenting cell (aAPC) that can process both the N- and C-termini of endogenously expressed proteins, we biochemically confirmed that g105 is naturally processed and presented by cell surface A2. Furthermore, g105-specific CD8+ CTLs generated from A2-positive healthy donors were able to specifically cytolyze γ-globin+, but not γ-globin- JMML cells in an A2-restricted manner. These results suggest that this aAPC-based approach enables the biochemical identification of CD8+ T-cell epitopes that are processed and presented by intact cells, and that CTL immunotherapy of JMML could be directed against the γ-globin-derived epitope g105.