bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Health-Related Quality of Life Instruments in Studies of Adult Men with Testosterone Deficiency Syndrome: A Critical Assessment
Authors: Langham Sue , Maggi Mario , Schulman Claude , Quinton Richard , Uhl-Hochgraeber Kerstin 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACT

Introduction
Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is a multidimensional concept, which subjectively measures a patient's physical, social, and emotional well-being. This information is becoming increasingly important in policy and clinical decisions. With such a wide range of tools available, careful selection is required to ensure they adequately reflect patient's concerns.

Aim
To critically assess HRQOL instruments used in studies of testosterone deficiency syndrome (TDS) to see whether they accurately measure these concerns.

Methods
A systematic review identified published articles. Studies were included if the population was adult men with TDS, with or without comorbid disease; used one or more HRQOL tools; and described the impact of treatment, the impact of TDS on the patient or the development of a questionnaire. Measurement properties and their use in clinical studies were described. Each study was assessed against 10 clinical face validity criteria to evaluate whether the questionnaires reflected issues that were of concern to patients.

Main Outcome Measure
Review of published literature.

Results
The study identified 29 articles that included 14 HRQOL questionnaires selected for use in 20 intervention studies, seven studies of the impact of TDS on the patient, and two studies describing the development of a HRQOL tool. Questionnaires displayed variable measurement properties and only nine studies complied with more than 50% of the clinical face validity criteria. Disease-specific instruments achieved a higher rate of compliance and more often demonstrated a positive effect of treatment on HRQOL compared to generic instruments.

Conclusion
Instruments used to measure HRQOL display variable measurement properties and often lack adequate clinical face validity. There are well-validated disease-specific HRQOL measures for age-related TDS, but none for classical TDS patients. Clinical and political decision-makers require HRQOL information using a combination of well-validated generic questionnaires and patient-focused, disease specific instruments relevant to the target TDS population under study.
A Screening Model for Injection‐Extraction Treatment Well Recirculation System Design
Authors: Wu Monica Y. , Smits Kathleen M. , Goltz Mark N , Christ John A. 
Published: December 2008

AbstractImplementation of injection‐extraction treatment well pairs for in situ, in‐well, or on‐site remediation may be facilitated by development and application of modeling tools to aid in hydraulic design and remediation technology selection. In this study, complex potential theory was employed to derive a simple one‐step design equation and related type curves that permit the calculation of the extraction well capture zone and the hydraulic recirculation between an injection and extraction well pair oriented perpendicular to regional flow. This equation may be used to aid in the design of traditional fully screened injection‐extraction wells as well as innovative tandem recirculating wells when an adequate geologic barrier to vertical ground water flow exists. Simplified models describing in situ bioremediation, in‐well vapor stripping, and in‐well metal reactor treatment efficiency were adapted from the literature and coupled with the hydraulic design equation presented here. Equations and type curves that combine the remediation treatment efficiency with the hydraulic design equation are presented to simulate overall system treatment efficiency under various conditions. The combined model is applied to predict performance of in situ bioremediation and in‐well palladium reactor designs that were previously described in the literature. This model is expected to aid practitioners in treatment system screening and evaluation.
Laboratory Study Evaluating Heating of Tetrachloroethylene Impacted Soil
Authors: Burghardt Julie M. , Kueper Bernard H. 
Published: December 2008

AbstractA series of laboratory experiments were conducted to evaluate the relationship between degree of tetrachloroethylene (PCE) mass removal and heating duration, initial dense nonaqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) saturation, and soil grain size. Data were collected to evaluate the impact of postheating sample temperature on PCE concentration and to calculate the thermal diffusivity of the soil. A linear relationship was found between initial DNAPL saturation and duration of the co‐boiling plateau, which occurred at 89 °C ± 4 °C. PCE concentrations were reduced most in samples that were heated beyond dryout, but continued heating for 12 hours beyond that point did not lead to further decreases. Heating samples with initial DNAPL saturations between 4.9% and 39.9% pore space illustrated a positive relationship between initial saturation and final soil concentration for a fixed heating duration. Smaller grain size resulted in lower postheating soil concentrations. Cooling postthermal remedy soils to as low as 20 °C prior to sampling did not affect measured PCE concentrations. An analytical model fit to cooling data indicated that the soil diffusivity values ranged from 1.4 × 10−7 to 1.8 × 10−7 m2/s.
A Practical Method to Evaluate Ground Water Contaminant Plume Stability
Authors: Ricker Joseph A. 
Published: December 2008

AbstractEvaluating plume stability is important for the evaluation of natural attenuation of dissolved chemicals in ground water. When characterizing ground water contaminant plumes, there are numerous methods for evaluating concentration data. Typically, the data are tabulated and ground water concentrations presented on a site figure. Contaminant concentration isopleth maps are typically developed to evaluate temporal changes in the plume boundaries, and plume stability is often assessed by conducting trend analyses for individual monitoring wells. However, it is becoming more important to understand and effectively communicate the nature of the entire plume in terms of its stability (i.e., is the plume growing, shrinking, or stable?). This article presents a method for evaluating plume stability using innovative techniques to calculate and assess historical trends in various plume characteristics, including area, average concentration, contaminant mass, and center of mass. Contaminant distribution isopleths are developed for several sampling events, and the characteristics mentioned previously are calculated for each event using numerical methods and engineering principles. A statistical trend analysis is then performed on the calculated values to assess the plume stability. The methodology presented here has been used at various contaminated sites to effectively evaluate the stability of contaminant plumes comprising tetrachloroethene, carbon tetrachloride, pentachlorophenol, creosote, naphthalene, benzene, and chlordane. Although other methods for assessing contaminant plume stability exist, this method has been shown to be efficient, reliable, and applicable to any site with an established monitoring well network and multiple years of analytical data.
Patient‐centered care and adherence: Definitions and applications to improve outcomes
Authors: Robinson Janice H. , Callister Lynn C. , Berry Judith A. , Dearing Karen A. 
Published: December 2008

AbstractPurpose: The implementation of patient‐centered care (PCC) has been hampered by the lack of a clear definition and method of measurement. The purpose of this review is to identify the fundamental characteristics of PCC to clarify its definition, propose a method for measurement of PCC, and recommend effective PCC practices.Data sources: Review of literature related to PCC, adherence and communication from Cinahl, PubMed Academic Search Premier, and Cochrane Library databases.Conclusions: Research has shown that patient‐centered interactions promote adherence and lead to improved health outcomes. The fundamental characteristics of PCC were identified as (a) patient involvement in care and (b) the individualization of patient care. The use of a numeric rating scale to measure the presence of these characteristics allows quantification from the patient perspective. Effective PCC practices were related to communication, shared decision making, and patient education.Implications for practice: PCC is a measure of the quality of health care. Understanding the characteristics of PCC facilitates its implementation and measurement. Promoting PCC activities will improve adherence and encourage patient responsibility for health status.
Diagnosis and management of geriatric insomnia: A guide for nurse practitioners
Authors: Krishnan Preetha , Hawranik Pamela 
Published: December 2008

AbstractPurpose: To discuss the assessment, diagnosis, and management of geriatric insomnia, a challenging clinical condition of older adults frequently seen by primary care providers.Data sources: Extensive literature review of the published research articles and textbooks.Conclusions: Complaints of insomnia among older adults are frequently ignored, considered a part of the normal aging process or viewed as a difficult to treat condition. Geriatric insomnia remains a challenge for primary care providers because of the lack of evidence‐based clinical guidelines and limited treatment options available. Effective management of this condition is necessary for improved quality of life, which is a primary issue for the elderly and their families. Therefore, geriatric insomnia warrants thorough attention from the nurse practitioners (NPs) who provide care for older adults.Implications for practice: Undiagnosed or under treated insomnia can cause increased risk for falls, motor vehicle accidents, depression, and shorter survival. Insomniacs double their risk for cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer, and suicide compared to their counterparts. Insomnia is also associated with increased healthcare utilization and institutionalization. NPs could play a central role in reducing the negative consequences of insomnia through a systematic approach for diagnosis, evaluation, and management.
THE VICTIMIZATION–TERMINATION LINK*
Authors: JACQUES SCOTT , WRIGHT RICHARD 
Published: December 2008

The life histories of drug dealers suggest that victimizations sometimes mark turning points toward the end of criminal careers, which is a criminologically important but neglected empirical connection that we label the “victimization–termination link.” We theorize this link thusly: When serious victimizations occur in the context of crime, a break from the customary provides an opportune situation for adaptation, and when victims have social bonds and agency, when they define the event as the result of their own criminal involvement, and when they find other adaptations unattractive, criminal‐victims are likely to adapt by terminating crime. We illustrate this desistance process with qualitative data obtained through interviews with young, middle‐class drug dealers. We conclude by exploring promising avenues for future work.It takes only a minute to change one's whole life course.
Genetically Engineered Mouse Models of Brain Cancer and the Promise of Preclinical Testing
Authors: Huse Jason T. , Holland Eric C. 
Published: December 2008

AbstractRecent improvements in the understanding of brain tumor biology have opened the door to a number of rational therapeutic strategies targeting distinct oncogenic pathways. The successful translation of such “designer drugs” to clinical application depends heavily on effective and expeditious screening methods in relevant disease models. By recapitulating both the underlying genetics and the characteristic tumor‐stroma microenvironment of brain cancer, genetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs) may offer distinct advantages over cell culture and xenograft systems in the preclinical testing of promising therapies. This review focuses on recently developed GEMMs for both glioma and medulloblastoma, and discusses their potential use in preclinical trials. Examples showcasing the use of GEMMs in the testing of molecularly targeted therapeutics are given, and relevant topics, such as stem cell biology, in vivo imaging technology and radiotherapy, are also addressed.
Overcoming the restriction barrier to plasmid transformation and targeted mutagenesis in Bifidobacterium breve UCC2003
Authors: O'Connell Motherway Mary , O'Driscoll Jonathan , Fitzgerald Gerald F. , Van Sinderen Douwe 
Published: December 2008

Summary In silico analysis of the Bifidobacterium breve UCC2003 genome predicted two distinct loci, which encode three different restriction/modification systems, each comprising a modification methylase and a restriction endonuclease. Based on sequence homology and observed protection against restriction we conclude that the first restriction endonuclease, designated BbrI, is an isoschizomer of BbeI, the second, BbrII, is a neoschizomer of SalI, while the third, BbrIII, is an isoschizomer of PstI. Expression of each of the B. breve UCC2003 methylase‐encoding genes in B. breve JCM 7017 established that BbrII and BbrIII are active and restrict incoming DNA. By exploiting knowledge on restriction/modification in B. breve UCC2003 we successfully increased the transformation efficiency to a level that allows the reliable generation of mutants by homologous recombination using a non‐replicative plasmid.
ATP Synthase and the Actions of Inhibitors Utilized To Study Its Roles in Human Health, Disease, and Other Scientific Areas
Authors: Hong Sangjin , Pedersen Peter L. 
Published: December 2008

SUMMARYATP synthase, a double-motor enzyme, plays various roles in the cell, participating not only in ATP synthesis but in ATP hydrolysis-dependent processes and in the regulation of a proton gradient across some membrane-dependent systems. Recent studies of ATP synthase as a potential molecular target for the treatment of some human diseases have displayed promising results, and this enzyme is now emerging as an attractive molecular target for the development of new therapies for a variety of diseases. Significantly, ATP synthase, because of its complex structure, is inhibited by a number of different inhibitors and provides diverse possibilities in the development of new ATP synthase-directed agents. In this review, we classify over 250 natural and synthetic inhibitors of ATP synthase reported to date and present their inhibitory sites and their known or proposed modes of action. The rich source of ATP synthase inhibitors and their known or purported sites of action presented in this review should provide valuable insights into their applications as potential scaffolds for new therapeutics for human and animal diseases as well as for the discovery of new pesticides and herbicides to help protect the world's food supply. Finally, as ATP synthase is now known to consist of two unique nanomotors involved in making ATP from ADP and Pi, the information provided in this review may greatly assist those investigators entering the emerging field of nanotechnology.
RecBCD Enzyme and the Repair of Double-Stranded DNA Breaks
Authors: Dillingham Mark S. , Kowalczykowski Stephen C. 
Published: December 2008

SUMMARYThe RecBCD enzyme ofEscherichia coliis a helicase-nuclease that initiates the repair of double-stranded DNA breaks by homologous recombination. It also degrades linear double-stranded DNA, protecting the bacteria from phages and extraneous chromosomal DNA. The RecBCD enzyme is, however, regulated by acis-acting DNA sequence known as Chi (crossover hotspot instigator) that activates its recombination-promoting functions. Interaction with Chi causes an attenuation of the RecBCD enzyme's vigorous nuclease activity, switches the polarity of the attenuated nuclease activity to the 5′ strand, changes the operation of its motor subunits, and instructs the enzyme to begin loading the RecA protein onto the resultant Chi-containing single-stranded DNA. This enzyme is a prototypical example of a molecular machine: the protein architecture incorporates several autonomous functional domains that interact with each other to produce a complex, sequence-regulated, DNA-processing machine. In this review, we discuss the biochemical mechanism of the RecBCD enzyme with particular emphasis on new developments relating to the enzyme's structure and DNA translocation mechanism.
Small Toxic Proteins and the Antisense RNAs That Repress Them
Authors: Fozo Elizabeth M. , Hemm Matthew R. , Storz Gisela 
Published: December 2008

SUMMARYThere has been a great expansion in the number of small regulatory RNAs identified in bacteria. Some of these small RNAs repress the synthesis of potentially toxic proteins. Generally the toxin proteins are hydrophobic and less than 60 amino acids in length, and the corresponding antitoxin small RNA genes are antisense to the toxin genes or share long stretches of complementarity with the target mRNAs. Given their short length, only a limited number of these type I toxin-antitoxin loci have been identified, but it is predicted that many remain to be found. Already their characterization has given insights into regulation by small RNAs, has suggested functions for the small toxic proteins at the cell membrane, and has led to practical applications for some of the type I toxin-antitoxin loci.
Volatile organic compounds in runners near a roadway: increased blood levels after short-duration exercise
Authors: Blair C , Walls J , Davies N W , Jacobson G A 
Published: December 2008

ObjectiveTo determine if non-elite athletes undertaking short duration running exercise adjacent to a busy roadway experience increased blood levels of common pollutant volatile organic compounds (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX)).Design and settingThe study was observational in design. Participants (nine males/one female non-elite athletes) ran for 20 min, near a busy roadway along a 100 m defined course at their own pace. Blood levels of BTEX were determined both pre- and post-exercise by SPME-GC-MS. Environmental BTEX levels were determined by passive adsorption samplers.ResultsSubjects completed a mean (range) distance of 4.4 (3.4 to 5.2) km over 20 min (4.5 (3.8 to 5.9) min/km pace), with a mean (SD) exercise intensity of 93 (2.3)% HRmax, and mean (SD) ventilation significantly elevated compared with resting levels (86.2 (2.3) vs 8.7 (0.9) l/min; p<0.001). The mean (SD) environmental levels (time weighted average) were determined as 53.1 (4.2), 428 (83), and 80.0 (3.7) μg/m3for toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes, respectively, while benzene was below the detectable limit due to the short exposure period. Significant increases in blood BTEX levels were observed in runners between pre- and postexercise for toluene (mean increase of 1.4 ng/ml; p=0.002), ethylbenzene (0.7 ng/ml; p=0.0003),m/p-xylene (2.0 ng/ml; p=0.004) ando-xylene (1.1 ng/ml; p=0.002), but no change was observed for benzene.ConclusionsBlood BTEX levels are increased during high-intensity exercise such as running undertaken in areas with BTEX pollution, even with a short duration of exercise. This may have health implications for runners who regularly exercise near roadways.
Coding sports injury surveillance data: has version 10 of the Orchard Sports Injury Classification System improved the classification of sports medicine diagnoses?
Authors: Hammond L E , Lilley J , Ribbans W J 
Published: December 2008

Objectives:To compare versions 8 and 10 of the Orchard Sports Injury Classification System (OSICS) to determine whether the revised version of OSICS has improved its use in a sports medicine setting, and to assess the inter-rater reliability of OSICS-10.Methods:Injury surveillance data, gathered over a 2 year period in professional football, cricket and rugby union to produce 335 diagnoses, were coded with both OSICS-8 and OSICS-10. Code–diagnosis agreement was assessed for OSICS-8 in terms of whether a diagnosis was codeable or noncodeable, and for OSICS-10 by evaluating the highest available OSICS-10 tier of coding. Eight clinicians coded a list of 20 diagnoses, comprising a range of pathologies to all gross anatomical regions, which were compared to assess inter-rater reliability.Results:All diagnoses could be assigned an appropriate code with OSICS-10, compared with 87% of diagnoses that could be assigned an OSICS-8 code. Contusions comprised almost half of OSICS-8 noncodeable diagnoses. OSICS-10 tier 2 codes accounted for 20% of diagnoses coded with the updated system. Of these 20%, almost half contained a more detailed diagnosis that did not have an available OSICS-10 tier 3 or 4 code. Inter-rater reliability increased with decreasing diagnostic detail, with an overall level shown to be moderate (k = 0.56).Conclusions:OSICS-10 is a more encompassing system than OSICS-8 to use in classifying sports medicine diagnoses, and has a moderate level of inter-rater reliability. Further minor revision may be required to address lack of detail in some strain, effusion and contusion codes.
Real-time Reyes-style adaptive surface subdivision
Authors: Patney Anjul , Owens John D. 
Published: December 2008

We present a GPU based implementation of Reyes-style adaptive surface subdivision, known in Reyes terminology as the Bound/Split and Dice stages. The performance of this task is important for the Reyes pipeline to map efficiently to graphics hardware, but its recursive nature and irregular and unbounded memory requirements present a challenge to an efficient implementation. Our solution begins by characterizing Reyes subdivision as a work queue with irregular computation, targeted to a massively parallel GPU. We propose efficient solutions to these general problems by casting our solution in terms of the fundamental primitives of prefix-sum and reduction, often encountered in parallel and GPGPU environments.
Our results indicate that real-time Reyes subdivision can indeed be obtained on today's GPUs. We are able to subdivide a complex model to subpixel accuracy within 15 ms. Our measured performance is several times better than that of Pixar's RenderMan. Our implementation scales well with the input size and depth of subdivision. We also address concerns of memory size and bandwidth, and analyze the feasibility of conventional ideas on screen-space buckets.
Interactive 3D architectural modeling from unordered photo collections
Authors: Sinha Sudipta N. , Steedly Drew , Szeliski Richard , Agrawala Maneesh , Pollefeys Marc 
Published: December 2008

We present an interactive system for generating photorealistic, textured, piecewise-planar 3D models of architectural structures and urban scenes from unordered sets of photographs. To reconstruct 3D geometry in our system, the user draws outlines overlaid on 2D photographs. The 3D structure is then automatically computed by combining the 2D interaction with the multi-view geometric information recovered by performing structure from motion analysis on the input photographs. We utilize vanishing point constraints at multiple stages during the reconstruction, which is particularly useful for architectural scenes where parallel lines are abundant. Our approach enables us to accurately model polygonal faces from 2D interactions in a single image. Our system also supports useful operations such as edge snapping and extrusions.Seamless texture maps are automatically generated by combining multiple input photographs using graph cut optimization and Poisson blending. The user can add brush strokes as hints during the texture generation stage to remove artifacts caused by unmodeled geometric structures. We build models for a variety of architectural scenes from collections of up to about a hundred photographs.