bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Fabrication of PDMS/glass microchips by twofold replication of PDMS and its application in genetic analysis
Authors: Qu Xiaofeng , Sang Fuming , Ren Jicun 
Published: September 2006

AbstractIn this paper, we describe a simple method for fabrication of high quality poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)/glass microchip by twofold replica molding of PDMS. This technique first served to transfer the negative microchannels from the glass template to the PDMS substrate as a master, and then this PDMS master with positive microchannels was used to replicate the PDMS replica with negative microchannels. Finally, the PDMS replica was bound to a glass sheet by UV radiation. The fabricated microchips were successfully applied for the detection of C677T mutation from the human methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase gene.
Tetrabenazine therapy of pediatric hyperkinetic movement disorders
Authors: Jain Samay , Greene Paul E. , Frucht Steven J. 
Published: September 2006

AbstractTetrabenazine (TBZ), a presynaptic dopamine depletor and postsynaptic dopamine receptor blocker, is widely used for the treatment of hyperkinetic movement disorders in adults. However, reports of its use in children are limited. We review the efficacy and tolerability of TBZ therapy in 31 children with hyperkinetic movement disorders refractory to other medications. TBZ was effective in reducing the severity of movement disorders resistant to treatment with other medicines. When compared to adult patients, pediatric patients required higher doses. Side effects were similar to the adult population; however, children had a lower incidence of drug‐induced Parkinsonism. © 2006 Movement Disorder Society
Body weight in patients with Parkinson's disease
Authors: Bachmann Cornelius G. , Trenkwalder Claudia 
Published: September 2006

AbstractThere is some evidence suggesting that Parkinson's disease (PD) patients exhibit lower body weight when compared to age‐matched healthy subjects. Low body mass index (BMI) is correlated with low bone mineral density, both of which are major risk factors for hip fractures. Possible determinants of weight loss in PD patients include hyposmia, impaired hand–mouth coordination, difficulty chewing, dysphagia, intestinal hypomotility, depression, decreased reward processing of dopaminergic mesolimbic regions, nausea, and anorexia as the side effects of medication, and increased energy requirements due to muscular rigidity and involuntary movements. It is unclear whether PD patients in general, or only a subgroup of those affected, definitely show lower BMI in the advanced stages of the disease. We therefore recommend that the body weight of PD patients be monitored monthly as the disease progresses, and that a patient's nutrition should be supplemented with sufficient amounts of vitamin D and calcium to reduce the risk of hip fractures and strengthen bone density. Because mealtimes may coincide with unpredictable off periods associated with akinesia and impaired hand–mouth coordination, PD patients also need flexible food schedules that accommodate the associated symptoms of this disease. © 2006 Movement Disorder Society
Hepatitis C virus—biology, host evasion strategies, and promising new therapies on the horizon
Authors: Qureshi Sohail A. 
Published: September 2006

AbstractHepatitis C reduces the quality of life for some 170 million people around the globe and is one of the most prevalent diseases on the planet. It is caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV) that is replicated by an error‐prone polymerase and therefore undergoes rapid evolution. To date, although much has been learned about the biology of HCV, only a partially effective combination therapy comprised of ribavirin and pegylated‐interferon‐α is available to hepatitis C sufferers. Given the prevalence of hepatitis C, together with the fact that almost half the chronically infected HCV patients are refractory to current therapy, there is an urgent need for an efficacious immunoprophylactic that protects individuals from HCV infection, as well as drugs that impede the viral life cycle effectively and eradicate infection. Herein, I provide an overview of the molecular biology of HCV, highlighting the functions of different virally encoded proteins in terms of how they alter signaling pathways of host cell to establish an infection and discuss whether a more promising therapy for treating hepatitis C is anywhere in sight. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Med Res Rev, 27, No. 3, 353–373, 2007
Thermal conductivity enhancement of electrically insulating syndiotactic poly(styrene) matrix for diphasic conductive polymer composites
Authors: Droval G. , Feller J.‐F. , Salagnac P. , Glouannec P. 
Published: September 2006

AbstractIn co‐continuous conductive polymer composites (CPCs) designed for heat generation by the Joule effect, thermal conductivity km of the electrically insulating matrix is the limiting factor to obtain good heat dissipation. To prevent the establishment of non‐desirable high temperature gradient in heating elements, it is necessary to enhance the thermal conductivity of the composite, kc, independently from its electrical conductivity, σ (already optimized). Several adequate fillers for this purpose have been selected, boron nitride (BN), talc (Mg3Si4O10 (OH)2), aluminum nitride (AlN) and aluminum oxide (Al2O3) particles, and their impact on thermal properties and syndiotactic polystyrene phase transition temperatures have been studies. Lewis and Nielson, Cheng and Vachon, Agari and Uno models were used to predict the evolution of thermal conductivity with filler content and were found to describe correctly thermal conductivity of CPCs after the determination of ϕm the maximum packing fraction, A = f(D/l) the shape factor, C1 and C2 parameters function of respectively modifications of crystals and ability of the filler particles to associate into chains. These models show that whatever the filler and unlike electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity does not go through a sharp insulator/conductor (percolation threshold). Only BN shows a real exponential increase of conductivity over 20% v/v filler. Consequently, in best conditions introducing 30% v/v of BN allows the thermal conductivity to be multiplied by six. BN particles were also found to shift the CPCs glass transition temperature (Tg), the non‐isothermal crystallization temperature (Tc,n) and the melting temperature Tm. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Identification of alkaline proteins that are differentially expressed in an overgrowth‐mediated growth arrest and cell death of Escherichia coli by proteomic methodologies
Authors: Wang Sanying , Zhu Rui , Peng Bo , Liu Mingming , Lou Yun , Ye Xintai , Xu Zhengzheng , Liu Dong , Peng Xuanxian 
Published: September 2006

AbstractThe available Escherichia coli genome sequences offer an opportunity to further expand our understanding of this bacterium. In the current study, we present a rapid method for the isolation of bacterial alkaline proteins using acid incubation, purification and protein array by 2‐DE, followed by protein identification using MS. Fifty‐seven proteins were randomly chosen, in which 55 were identified by a database searching of MS data. The searching results showed that most of these alkaline proteins were involved in special functions within the cell, suggesting that alkaline proteome is an ideal fraction for an understanding of their special functions. Furthermore, alkaline proteomes were compared between the period of majority live bacteria (18‐h culture), the period of similar amount of live and dead bacteria (30‐h culture) and the period of majority dead bacteria (48‐h culture). Six proteins were identified as differentially expressed targets, in which putative transcriptional regulator and superoxide dismutase genes were cloned and expressed for antiserum preparations. The antisera were applied for the confirmation of results obtained from 2‐DE. The presented data clearly reveal that alkaline proteome analysis by 2‐DE with MS plays an important role in the understanding of protein functions within the cell, and six alkaline proteins are determined as key ones in an overgrowth‐mediated growth cycle of E. coli.
GNBSL: A new integrative system to predict the subcellular location for Gram‐negative bacteria proteins
Authors: Guo Jian , Lin Yuanlie , Liu Xiangjun 
Published: September 2006

AbstractThis paper proposes a new integrative system (GNBSL – Gram‐negative bacteria subcellular localization) for subcellular localization specifized on the Gram‐negative bacteria proteins. First, the system generates a position‐specific frequency matrix (PSFM) and a position‐specific scoring matrix (PSSM) for each protein sequence by searching the Swiss‐Prot database. Then different features are extracted by four modules from the PSFM and the PSSM. The features include whole‐sequence amino acid composition, N‐ and C‐terminus amino acid composition, dipeptide composition, and segment composition. Four probabilistic neural network (PNN) classifiers are used to classify these modules. To further improve the performance, two modules trained by support vector machine (SVM) are added in this system. One module extracts the residue‐couple distribution from the amino acid sequence and the other module applies a pairwise profile alignment kernel to measure the local similarity between every two sequences. Finally, an additional SVM is used to fuse the outputs from the six modules. Test on a benchmark dataset shows that the overall success rate of GNBSL is higher than those of PSORT‐B, CELLO, and PSLpred. A web server GNBSL can be visited from http://166.111.24.5/webtools/GNBSL/index.htm.
Proteomic analysis of cold adaptation in a Siberian permafrost bacterium – Exiguobacterium sibiricum 255–15 by two‐dimensional liquid separation coupled with mass spectrometry
Authors: Qiu Yinghua , Kathariou Sophia , Lubman David M. 
Published: September 2006

AbstractBacterial cold adaptation in Exiguobacterium sibiricum 255–15 was studied on a proteomic scale using a 2‐D liquid phase separation coupled with MS technology. Whole‐cell lysates of E. sibiricum 255–15 grown at 4°C and 25°C were first fractionated according to pI by chromatofocusing (CF), and further separated based on hydrophobicity by nonporous silica RP HPLC (NPS‐RP‐HPLC) which was on‐line coupled with an ESI‐TOF MS for intact protein Mr measurement and quantitative interlysate comparison. Mass maps were created to visualize the differences in protein expression between different growth temperatures. The differentially expressed proteins were then identified by PMF using a MALDI‐TOF MS and peptide sequencing by MS/MS with a MALDI quadrupole IT TOF mass spectrometer (MALDI‐QIT‐TOF MS). A total of over 500 proteins were detected in this study, of which 256 were identified. Among these proteins 39 were cold acclimation proteins (Caps) that were preferentially or uniquely expressed at 4°C and three were homologous cold shock proteins (Csps). The homologous Csps were found to be similarly expressed at 4°C and 25°C, where these three homologous Csps represent about 10% of the total soluble proteins at both 4°C and 25°C.
Synthesis and characterization of new carbazole/fluorene‐based derivatives for blue‐light‐emitting devices
Authors: Grigalevicius Saulius , Ma Liang , Xie Zhi‐Yuan , Scherf Ullrich 
Published: September 2006

Abstract2,7‐Bis(9‐ethylcarbazol‐3‐yl)‐9,9‐di(2‐ethylhexyl)fluorene and a segmented copolymer composed of the same chromophores alternated with hexamethylene fragments were synthesized. The obtained materials possess good solubility in common organic solvents, high thermal stability with 1% weight loss temperature of 350–370 °C, and suitable glass transition temperatures. Both derivatives show blue fluorescence in dilute solutions as well as in solid state, demonstrating that excimers are not formed in the thin films. The fluorescence spectra of the materials do not show any peaks in the long‐wavelength region even after annealing at 200 °C in air. An organic LED with the configuration of ITO/copolymer/Al generates blue electroluminescence with the maximum peak at 416 nm, rather low turn‐on voltage (4.0 V), and brightness of about 400 cd/m2. The heterostructure device based on model derivative emitted stable blue light with low operation voltage (100 cd/m2 at ∼11 V) and demonstrated luminescence efficiency of 0.8 cd/A. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 5987–5994, 2006
Effects of polymer structure on reactivity of functional groups in reduction reaction using tin hydride soluble supports
Authors: Thibaud Sandrine , Moine Laurence , Maillard Bernard 
Published: September 2006

AbstractThe influence of macromolecular chains onto reactivity of the grafted functional group has been investigated through reduction of 6‐bromohexene using tin hydride soluble polymer supports. Kinetic investigations clearly indicate a retarding effect of the polymer structure on the substrate diffusion. Correlations of molecular weight and degree of functionalization with reactivity of the functional lateral groups are discussed. In dilute regime, an increasing of internal density of the polymer coil leads to a diminution of the rate constant kH. Thus, the higher density of the coil limits the substrates diffusion, which favors the radical cyclization and so formation of the cyclic product. At the opposite, in concentrated regime formation of the acyclic product, hex‐1‐ene is favored despite the higher viscosity of such medium that should limit the diffusion. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 5954–5964, 2006
Synthesis and self‐assembly of thymine‐ and adenine‐containing homopolymers and diblock copolymers
Authors: Tang Huadong , Radosz Maciej , Shen Youqing 
Published: September 2006

AbstractAtom transfer radical polymerizations (ATRPs) of 1‐(4‐methacryloyloxy‐benzyl)thymine (MAT) and 9‐(2‐methacryloyloxyethyl)adenine (MAA) were conducted for the synthesis of DNA‐base functionalized polymers. The association equilibrium constant Kasso between MAT and MAA and the complexation equilibrium constant Kcomp between the corresponding polymers PMAT and PMAA were determined. A zipper‐like diblock copolymer, PMAT‐b‐PMAA, was prepared by anchoring the PMAT and PMAA blocks on the ortho‐positions of a pyridine ring via a successive two‐step ATRP. Dynamic light scattering and atom force microscopy confirmed that the block copolymer had a V‐shaped configuration in dimethylsulfoxide/N,N‐dimethylformamide. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 5995–6006, 2006
Role of sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate in 2,2,6,6‐tetramethy‐1‐piperidinyloxy‐mediated styrene miniemulsion polymerization
Authors: Lin Marcus , Hsu James C. C. , Cunningham Michael F. 
Published: September 2006

AbstractIn studying 2,2,6,6‐tetramethy‐1‐piperidinyloxy (TEMPO)‐mediated styrene miniemulsions, we have observed that the surfactant sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate (SDBS) not only provides colloidal stability but also influences the rate of polymerization. Increasing the SDBS concentration results in higher polymerization rates, although the molecular weight distribution and particle size distribution are not significantly impacted. We have also examined another common sulfonate surfactant, DOWFAX 8390. In contrast to SDBS, DOWFAX 8390 does not affect the polymerization rate. Furthermore, DOWFAX‐stabilized polymerizations are slower than SDBS‐stabilized polymerizations. TEMPO‐mediated bulk styrene polymerizations are also accelerated significantly in the presence of SDBS. Although the mechanism for the rate acceleration is unknown, the experimental evidence suggests that SDBS is participating in the generation of radicals capable of propagating, thereby reducing the TEMPO concentration within the particles. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 5974–5986, 2006
Nitrogen isotopic composition in hair protein is different in liver cirrhotic patients
Authors: Petzke Klaus J. , Feist Thomas , Fleig Wolfgang E. , Metges Cornelia C. 
Published: September 2006

AbstractThe stable‐isotopic composition of nitrogen (δ15N) or carbon (δ13C) of body tissues depends on the isotopic composition of food sources and on shifts due to isotopic fractionation during metabolism. As little is known about the effects of pathophysiological conditions we measured δ15N and δ13C values in hair and hair amino acids of patients with cirrhosis (n = 21) and compared the results with those of healthy subjects (n = 100) randomly selected from the 1987–1988 VERA German nutrition survey population. Cirrhosis was reflected in lower hair 15N abundances (6.7 vs. 9.9‰ δ15N; P <0.001) whereas hair 13C abundances did not differ from healthy subjects (−19.4 vs. −19.6‰  13C). Distinct patterns of δ15N and δ13C values were measured in hair amino acids. The δ15N values of phenylalanine were significantly higher in cirrhotics (P < 0.001). With the exception of isoleucine, threonine, and proline all other measured amino acids showed lower δ15N values than healthy subjects (P < 0.001). Lower hair δ15N values were associated with cirrhotic liver disease which suggests that under this condition the altered liver amino acid metabolism affects the nitrogen isotopic composition of the amino acids used for hair protein synthesis. It remains to be determined in controlled studies whether the altered nitrogen isotopic composition directly reflects the pathophysiological condition or is related to differences in dietary protein intake from plant or animal food sources. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A comparative investigation of methods for logistic regression with separated or nearly separated data
Authors: Heinze Georg 
Published: September 2006

AbstractIn logistic regression analysis of small or sparse data sets, results obtained by classical maximum likelihood methods cannot be generally trusted. In such analyses it may even happen that the likelihood meets the convergence criteria while at least one parameter estimate diverges to ±∞. This situation has been termed ‘separation’, and it typically occurs whenever no events are observed in one of the two groups defined by a dichotomous covariate. More generally, separation is caused by a linear combination of continuous or dichotomous covariates that perfectly separates events from non‐events. Separation implies infinite or zero maximum likelihood estimates of odds ratios, which are usually considered unrealistic. I provide some examples of separation and near‐separation in clinical data sets and discuss some options to analyse such data, including exact logistic regression analysis and a penalized likelihood approach. Both methods supply finite point estimates in case of separation. Profile penalized likelihood confidence intervals for parameters show excellent behaviour in terms of coverage probability and provide higher power than exact confidence intervals. General advantages of the penalized likelihood approach are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bayesian synthesis of epidemiological evidence with different combinations of exposure groups: application to a gene–gene–environment interaction
Authors: Salanti Georgia , Higgins Julian P. T. , White Ian R. 
Published: September 2006

AbstractMeta‐analysis to investigate the joint effect of multiple factors in the aetiology of a disease is of increasing importance in epidemiology. This task is often challenging in practice, because studies typically concentrate on studying the effect of only one exposure, sometimes may report the interaction between two exposures, but rarely address more complex interactions that involve more than two exposures. In this paper, we develop a meta‐analysis framework that combines estimates from studies of multiple exposures. A key development is an approach to combining results from studies that report information on any subset or combination of the full set of exposures.The model requires assumptions to be made about the prevalence of the specific exposures. We discuss several possible model specifications and prior distributions, including information internal and external to the meta‐analysis data set, and using fixed‐effect and random‐effects meta‐analysis assumptions. The methodology is implemented in an original meta‐analysis of studies relating the risk of bladder cancer to two N‐acetyltransferase genes, NAT1 and NAT2, and smoking status. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Statistical distribution of the difference of two proportions
Authors: Nadarajah Saralees , Kotz Samuel 
Published: September 2006

AbstractDifferences of two proportions or rates occur most frequently in biomedical research. However, as far as published work in the Statistics in Medicine are concerned, only approximations have been used to study the distribution of such differences. In this Letter, we derive the exact probability distribution of the difference of two proportions. The expression involves a well‐known special function. It is expected that this result could be widely useful for medical practitioners. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A Brief Overview of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome
Authors: Hardaway Robert M. 
Published: September 2006

AbstractBackgroundThe low pO2 in traumatic and septic shock was first documented at Walter Reed Army Medical Center starting in 1960. It was postulated that this respiratory failure was due to the occlusion of the pulmonary microcirculation by the microclots of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC).Materials and MethodsAnimal studies showed that pulmonary failure and death could be caused by intravenous injection of a killed culture of either Escherichia coli or pneumococcal organisms or by severe muscle contusion. Severe clinical septic and traumatic shock cases were studied.ResultsInjection of either killed E. coli or killed pneumococci resulted in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and death in pigs. Muscle contusion also resulted in ARDS and death in pigs. Both ARDS and death were prevented by administration of a plasminogen activator, and ARDS in human septic or traumatic shock were safely and effectively treated by administration of a plasminogen activator.ConclusionsAcute respiratory distress syndrome can be caused by DIC, which blocks the microcirculation of any and all organs. These microclots can be safely lysed by a plasminogen activator, thus treating ARDS and saving lives.