bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Comparative evaluation of different D-dimer assays for exclusion of venous thromboembolism in a clinical routine setting1
Authors: Roggenbuck Lennart , Dörner Klaus 
Published: September 2008

Abstract
The aim of our prospective study on 246 consecutive outpatients with suspected acute venous thromboembolism (VTE) was to evaluate the actual performance of four D-dimer assays (D-dimer plus, Stratus CS, Innovance, Siemens Medical Solutions Diagnostics, and Tina-quant D-dimer, Roche Diagnostics) for exclusion of VTE. Analysis was initiated after false negative results in three patients with proven VTE were observed in routine diagnostics.
Diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, negative and positive predictive values of the D-dimer tests were calculated based on recommended cut-off levels and on upper limits of corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). VTE was confirmed in 46 patients (18.7%) by imaging techniques. The D-dimer plus assay yielded seven false negative results (nine considering 95% CI) in 46 patients. A sensitivity of 84.8% and 80.4% and a negative predictive value of 93.8% and 93.0%, respectively, was achieved. In contrast, the alternative tests showed no false negative results (sensitivity and negative predictive value 100%), and a higher D-dimer result to cut-off ratio.
Detection of performance deficiencies of established diagnostic assays requires close cooperation with the clinician and further evaluation by the medical laboratory in accordance with the requirements of DIN EN ISO 15189.
Natural killer cells and natural killer T cells in patients with renal transplantation1
Authors: Hoppe Anett , Kamprad Manja , Wegmann Claudia , Wötzel Michael , Hauss Johann , Emmrich Frank , Fangmann Josef , Sack Ulrich 
Published: September 2008

Abstract
Notwithstanding high clinical standards, renal transplantation, as the established procedure for treating terminal renal failure, involves the risk of numerous complications, especially in the postoperative period. Rejection episodes and bacterial, viral as well as fungal infections are of particular relevance. Frequently their timely clinical as well as laboratory identification and the resulting therapeutic consequences are too imprecise. This paper describes a practice-oriented concept for immunological monitoring within 28 days of observation following transplantation, including natural killer cells (NK) and natural killer T cells (NKT cells). This monitoring process focuses on flow cytometric identification of the functional markers NKp30, NKp44, NKp46, CD16 and CXCR3 on NK and NKT cells. Both cell populations were influenced by the therapy. While there was hardly any difference between living and cadaver donors and while no significant differences were found between the immunosuppressants, NKT cell findings in particular appear to make a diagnostic use of these cells possible while the graft is being monitored. The development of these cells following renal transplantation shows the changes typical under standard immunosuppression and permits the identification of postoperative complications.
The Lyric Suite and Berg's Twelve-Tone Duality
Authors: Ashby Arved 
Published: September 2008

Abstract
The Lyric Suite is Berg's first extended twelve-tone composition, yet by his own description only half of the work uses twelve-tone techniques. This compositional hybridity raises significant aesthetic and political questions. How could the composer demonstrate what he called “the possibility of expressing myself musically in that way” and at the same time artfully prevaricate on the issue of twelve-tone necessity? When in its genesis did the composer understand the Lyric Suite to be a hybrid composition? Here the sketches and autographs—held by the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna—prove invaluable. Berg's sketches reveal that he began the Lyric Suite by working around the twelve-tone movements, which started with minimal experimental work that he did not keep. Berg attempted some kind of “twelve-tone music” with the Lyric Suite, but in failing to differentiate the compositional process from the supposedly pre-compositional, his approach was inconsistent with Schoenberg's early method of “working with tones.” At the same time, Schoenberg's and Webern's twelve-tone compositions from the early 1920s display hybrid aspects of their own. Berg came last of the three to twelve-tone methods and devised a typically artful response, going public with his amalgam and exhibiting it in the very fabric and design of his composition.
Berg's Propaganda Pieces: The “Platonic Idea” of Lulu
Authors: Notley Margaret 
Published: September 2008

Abstract
After finishing the short score of Lulu and starting to orchestrate it in the spring of 1934, Berg began to realize that his opera might not be staged in Berlin, long planned as the site for the premiere. In late May he decided to make a concert arrangement that he referred to as “a Propaganda selection,” which became the Symphonische Stücke aus “Lulu.” In contemporary usage the German word “Propaganda” typically denoted advertising or publicity. Acting on advice from his editor, Hans Heinsheimer, and supported by the efforts of his student Willi Reich, Berg sought to create a “Propaganda” work that could be performed even in Hitler's Germany and would drum up interest in performances of the entire opera elsewhere.
Letters and other sources, many unpublished, show Berg gradually coming to grips both with the reality of the political situation in Germany and with the offensiveness—even to some favorably disposed to modernist music—of the texts by Frank Wedekind on which he based his libretto. A comparison of his arrangement and the opera illuminates the different effects made by more or less the same music in the two works as well as what Berg valued in Lulu and was therefore reluctant to relinquish. Above all he resisted giving up the texts for the music that he arranged as the first and fifth movements, apparently wishing to preserve the striking textures that he had created by placing an operatic voice against a self-sufficient orchestral fabric. But mentored by Heinsheimer, he ended up distancing his arrangement from the opera that it was supposed to promote by removing most of the words; and assisted by Reich he wrote misleading program notes to fill in the resulting semantic gaps. Berg created an arrangement that could be enjoyed as, in his own words, “pure music.” Lulu became the platonic idea of Lulu.
Kawasaki Disease in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit: A Case-Control Study
Authors: Dominguez Samuel R. , Friedman Kevin , Seewald Ryan , Anderson Marsha S. , Willis Lisa , Glodé Mary P. 
Published: September 2008

OBJECTIVES. We conducted a case-control study to ascertain the clinical presentations, risk factors, and clinical outcomes of children who had Kawasaki disease and were admitted to the ICU of our children's hospital.
METHODS. We reviewed charts of all children who had a discharge diagnosis of Kawasaki disease and were admitted to the ICU from 1995 through 2007. For each patient, we identified 3 season-matched control subjects who had Kawasaki disease and were not admitted to the ICU.
RESULTS. We identified 423 patients with Kawasaki disease. Of those, 14 (3.3%) were admitted to the ICU and met our inclusion criteria. ICU admission diagnoses were most commonly toxic shock or septic shock. Thirteen (92.8%) of 14 patients who were admitted to the ICU met criteria for complete Kawasaki disease before treatment. There was no significant difference in age in ICU patients compared with season-matched control subjects with Kawasaki disease. ICU patients were significantly more likely to be female and to have higher band counts, lower platelet counts, lower albumin levels, and higher C-reactive protein values. Time from admission to treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin was delayed in ICU patients. ICU patients were more likely to have intravenous immunoglobulin–refractory disease and require therapy with a second dose of intravenous immunoglobulin, infliximab, or steroids.
CONCLUSIONS. We present a case-control study of patients who had Kawasaki disease and presented severely ill, in shock, and requiring admission to the ICU. These patients frequently were misdiagnosed because of failure to appreciate the full spectrum of disease severity seen in patients with Kawasaki disease. These patients' illnesses was often mistaken for toxic or septic shock, leading to a delay in treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin. Patients who have Kawasaki disease and are admitted to the ICU are at increased risk for intravenous immunoglobulin–refractory disease and may be at risk for development of more severe coronary artery disease.
Direct and indirect effects of a potential aquatic contaminant on grazer–algae interactions
Authors: Evans-White Michelle A. , Lamberti Gary A. 
Published: September 2008

Abstract
Contaminants have direct, harmful effects across multiple ecological scales, including the individual, the community, and the ecosystem levels. Less, however, is known about how indirect effects of contaminants on consumer physiology or behavior might alter community interactions or ecosystem processes. We examined whether a potential aquatic contaminant, an ionic liquid, can indirectly alter benthic algal biomass and primary production through direct effects on herbivorous snails. Ionic liquids are nonvolatile organic salts being considered as an environmentally friendly potential replacement for volatile organic compounds in industry. In two greenhouse experiments, we factorially crossed four concentrations of 1-N-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide (bmimBr; experiment 1: 0 or 10 mg/L; experiment 2: 0, 1, or 100 mg/L) with the presence or absence of the snail Physa acuta in aquatic mesocosms. Experimental results were weighted by their respective control (no bmimBr or P. acuta) and combined for statistical analysis. When both bmimBr and snails were present, chlorophyll a abundance and algal biovolume were higher than would be expected if both factors acted additively. In addition, snail growth rates, relative to those of controls, declined by 41 to 101% at 10 and 100 mg/L of bmimBr. Taken together, these two results suggest that snails were less efficient grazers in the presence of bmimBr, resulting in release of algae from the grazer control. Snails stimulated periphyton primary production in the absence, but not in the presence, of bmimBr, suggesting that bmimBr also can indirectly alter ecosystem function. These findings suggest that sublethal contaminant levels can negatively impact communities and ecosystem processes via complex interactions, and they provide baseline information regarding the potential effects of an emergent industrial chemical on aquatic systems.
Single- and two-species tests to study effects of the anthelmintics ivermectin and morantel and the coccidiostatic monensin on soil invertebrates
Authors: Jensen John , Diao Xiaoping , Hansen Anne Duus 
Published: September 2008

Abstract
Soil invertebrates in arable land are potentially exposed to veterinary medicines excreted by husbandry. The toxicity of three widely used pharmaceuticals was therefore investigated with the use of common soil invertebrates exposed in the laboratory in single- or two-species test system. The anthelmintic morantel did not cause significant mortality to either Folsomia fimetaria or Enchytraeus crypticus even at the highest tested concentration of 900 mg kg−1 dry soil. The coccidiostatic monensin affected the reproduction of F. fimetaria and E. crypticus with soil concentrations estimated to cause a 10% effect at values of approximately 109 and 71.8 mg kg−1 dry soil, respectively, but caused no mortality to adult. The anthelmintic ivermectin did not affect the survival of adult Hypoaspis aculeifer. Reproduction of H. aculeifer declined approximately 45% in response to ivermectin exposure of 5 mg kg−1 dry soil. Ivermectin was highly toxic to F. fimetaria and affected the survival of adults with soil concentrations estimated to cause a 50% mortality at values of 5.3 mg kg−1 dry soil in the single-species test system and 0.14 mg kg−1 dry soil in the two-species test system. Reproduction of F. fimetaria was reduced by ivermectin with 10% effective concentration at 0.19 mg kg−1 dry soil in the single-species test system and 0.02 mg kg−1 dry soil in two-species test system. It was shown that species interactions may influence the response of test organisms to toxic substances. The data from this study and previously published data showed that, whereas ivermectin is likely to pose a risk to soil-dwelling invertebrates, adverse effects of morantel and monensin are unlikely to occur as a result of residue excretion from treated farm animals.
Cellular localization of lead using an antibody-based detection system and enzyme activity changes in the gills and digestive gland of the blue mussel Mytilus edulis
Authors: Einsporn Sonja , Bressling Jana , Koehler Angela 
Published: September 2008

Abstract
Marine organisms are continuously exposed to heavy metals in their environment. Bivalve mollusks such as the blue mussel Mytilus edulis accumulate high levels of heavy metals effecting cellular homeostasis and functions. Lead (Pb) exposure (2.5 mg/L of lead (II) nitrate for 10 d) and depuration (10 d in clean seawater) experiments were conducted to study its intracellular fate in the gills and digestive gland of M. edulis. For this purpose, an antibody-based detection method for ultrastructural localization and a subcellular fractionation approach for chemical analysis of Pb were used. In addition, effects of Pb on enzyme activities involved in oxyradical scavenging, such as the conjugative enzyme glutathione-S-transferase and the antioxidative enzyme catalase, were determined. The ultrastructural studies showed that Pb was mainly detected in lysosomes of gill epithelial cells and digestive cells. Lead was also detected in cell nuclei and granular hemocytes. Higher metal concentrations were measured by chemical analysis in subcellular fractions of the gills compared to those of the digestive gland. Increased activities of glutathione-S-transferase were found in gills after exposure and remained elevated during the depuration period, whereas glutathione-S-transferase activity remained unaffected in the digestive gland. Catalase activities showed no changes after Pb exposure, neither in the gills nor in the digestive gland. We conclude that gill cells are major sites of uptake and accumulation for dissolved Pb and are involved in sequestration and detoxification of this metal in M. edulis.
Evaluation of long-term biomarker data from perch (Perca fluviatilis) in the Baltic sea suggests increasing exposure to environmental pollutants
Authors: Hanson Niklas , Förlin Lars , Larsson Åke 
Published: September 2008

AbstractSince 1988, biomarkers in female perch (Perca fluviatilis) have been analyzed at a reference site on the Swedish Baltic coast. Strong time trends toward increasing hepatic ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) activity and reduced gonadosomatic index (GSI) have been observed. This could be caused by pollutants as well as other factors, such as increasing water temperature or reduced mean age of sampled fish. Correlation analyses were used to find the most probable explanation for the time trends. The time trends were still significant for EROD (p &lt; 0.001) and GSI (p &lt; 0.001) when the correlations were controlled for age. Furthermore, increasing water temperature could not explain the time trends. Exposure to pollutants through runoff from land was found to be probable, because mean flow rate in a nearby river during the last 20 d before sampling correlated to EROD activity (p &lt; 0.01). In addition, the sum of EROD activities during the life time of the perch (ERODlife) correlated significantly with GSI (p &lt; 0.001). This suggests that perch exposed to more EROD-inducing chemicals during their lifetime have reduced or delayed gonad development. The time trend in GSI and the correlation between ERODlife and GSI were supported by data from a site in the Bothnian Bay (northern Baltic Sea; p &lt; 0.05). The results indicate that increased rain fall (climate change) can affect the distribution and bioavailability of chemicals in coastal areas. The link between EROD and gonad size supports the common assumption that biochemical biomarkers can act as early warning signals for effects on higher levels, which commonly is difficult to show. The significant results can probably be attributed to the unique 20-year data set.
Effectiveness of Pit and Fissure Sealants in Reducing White Spot Lesions during Orthodontic Treatment
Authors: Benham Adam W. , Campbell Phillip M. , Buschang Peter H. 
Published: September 2008

Abstract
Objective: A pilot investigation was performed to test the null hypothesis that highly filled (58%) resin sealants do not prevent white spot lesions in patients undergoing active orthodontic treatment.
Materials and Methods: A split-mouth design was applied to 60 healthy patients, with the sealant randomly allocated to either the right or the left side of each jaw. The sealant was applied to the incisors and canines from the gingival surface of the bracket to the free gingival margin. The contralateral teeth had the same type of bracket with no sealant. Sealants were placed on the experimental teeth 2 weeks to 3 months after initial bonding and were removed after 15 to 18 months. Intraoral photographs, visual assessments, and DIAGNOdent (KaVo Dental Corporation, Lake Zurich, Ill) measurements were used to assess white spot lesions after sealant removal.
Results: Six lesions on the teeth with sealants were identified visually, compared with 22 lesions on the teeth without sealants. The teeth without sealants had 3.8 times the number of white spot lesions than were noted on the sealed teeth. These sealants showed no visible signs of discoloration. The DIAGNOdent measured statistically significant differences between sealed and unsealed teeth in the maxilla (P &lt; .001) and in the mandible (P = .010). DIAGNOdent measurements also showed a difference between sealed and unsealed teeth after the 28 teeth with visible lesions were excluded.
Conclusion: The hypothesis was rejected. Ultraseal XT Plus clear sealant (Ultradent Products, South Jordon, Utah) produced a significant reduction in enamel demineralization during fixed orthodontic treatment and should be considered for use by clinicians to minimize white spot lesions.
Opening of Circumaxillary Sutures by Alternate Rapid Maxillary Expansions and Constrictions
Authors: Wang Yu-Chi , Chang Peter M. S. , Liou Eric Jein-Wein 
Published: September 2008

Abstract
Objective: To analyze quantitatively the circumaxillary suture opening after alternate rapid maxillary expansions and constrictions (Alt-RAMEC).
Materials and Methods: Twelve inbred cats were randomly grouped into two equal groups for 1 week of rapid maxillary expansion (RME) (1 mm/day) or 5 weeks of Alt-RAMEC (1 mm/day). At the end of the experiment, the craniofacial skeleton of each cat was harvested. Each circumaxillary suture was then probed at three sites with a 0.5-mm pointed periodontal probe. A smooth probing without penetration was an ineffective suture opening (&lt;0.5 mm), while a probing with penetration was an effective suture opening (&gt;0.5 mm). For each suture, the quantity of suture opening (%) was the effective suture opening/(effective + ineffective suture opening). The intergroup differences were analyzed by chi-square test (P &lt; .05).
Results: Five weeks of Alt-RAMEC opened the circumaxillary sutures significantly more than 1 week of RME. This affected the circumaxillary sutures running coronally and articulating directly to the maxilla (56.9% vs 36.1%, P &lt; .001), the sutures running sagittally, but articulating indirectly to the maxilla (94.4% vs 64.8%, P &lt; .001), and the sutures running coronally, but articulating indirectly to the maxilla (58.3% vs 33.3%, P &lt; .01). The sutures running sagittally were opened significantly more (94.4%–100.0%) than those running coronally (56.9%–58.3%), no matter if they articulated directly or indirectly with the maxilla.
Conclusions: Alt-RAMEC opens both the sagittally and coronally running circumaxillary sutures quantitatively more than conventional RME. However, more than 5 weeks of Alt-RAMEC would be needed to increase the opening of the coronally running circumaxillary sutures. (Angle Orthod. 2009:79; )
In Vitro Antibacterial and Cytotoxicity Assessments of an Orthodontic Bonding Agent Containing Benzalkonium Chloride
Authors: Saito Kayo , Hayakawa Tohru , Kawabata Rihito , Meguro Daijiro , Kasai Kazutaka 
Published: September 2008

Abstract
Objective: To assess the antibacterial activity and cytotoxicity of an orthodontic bonding material containing an antibacterial agent.
Materials and Methods: Superbond C&B (4-methacryloxyethyl trimellitate anhydride/methyl methacrylate-tri-n-butyl borane [4-META/MMA-TBB]) resin was mixed with benzalkonium chloride (BAC) to obtain final BAC concentrations of 0.25%, 0.75%, 1.25%, 1.75%, 2.5%, and 5.0% (wt/ wt). Antibacterial activity against Streptococcus mutans and Streptococcus sobrinus was evaluated by soaking the BAC-resin in distilled water at 37°C for periods of 30, 90, and 180 days. Antibacterial activity of the BAC-resin was measured by the disk diffusion method, and the inhibition zone around each sample was measured and recorded. For evaluation of cytotoxicity, BAC-resin samples were put into cell culture inserts placed above human gingival cells and were incubated at 37°C for 1, 3, and 6 days. Cytotoxicity was assessed with a tetrazolium bromide reduction assay.
Results: The antibacterial activity of BAC-incorporated resin samples decreased significantly after immersion in water for 180 days, regardless of BAC concentration. The antibacterial activity of nonimmersed resin containing 0.25% or 1.75% BAC was comparable with that of 5.0% BAC-resin immersed for 180 days. In cytotoxicity tests, most cells died when exposed to resins containing 1.75%, 2.5%, and 5% BAC. No difference was observed between resins containing 0.25% and 0.75% BAC at 1, 3, and 6 days of culture.
Conclusions: The addition of BAC to 4-META/MMA-TBB resin confers an antibacterial effect even after immersion in water, and 4-META/MMA-TBB resin containing 0.25% to 0.75% BAC has no significant cytotoxic effect.