bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of dark circles of the lower eyelid: comparison between reflectance meters and image processing and involvement of dermal thickness in appearance
Authors: Ohshima Hiroshi , Takiwaki Hirotsugu 
Published: July 2007

Background/aims: Dark circles of the lower eyelid (DCLE) represent a well‐known beauty problem. The pathogenesis of DCLE is obscure, although stasis and hyperpigmentation of the eyelids have been considered to be involved. One reason for the small number of studies on DCLE may be the difficulty in measuring such soft and curved skin as the eyelids using bulky reflectance meters. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively analyze DCLE using various bioengineering methods.Methods: The lower eyelid and cheek areas of 14 subjects with DCLE and 28 without DCLE were examined using two kinds of reflectance meters and image analysis to measure erythema index (EI), melanin index (MI), and oxygenation index (OX). Ultrasound echo images were also recorded to evaluate the thickness and echo density of the dermis. An in vitro model using collagen gel and hemoglobin solution was also examined as a phantom of eyelid skin.Results: When contact‐type reflectance meters were used, no significant differences in EI, MI, and OX were found between groups with and without DCLE. However, mean values of both MI and EI at eyelids were significantly higher in subjects with DCLE on image analysis, paralleling the results of inspection. Mean dermal thickness was significantly smaller in subjects with DCLE.Conclusion: Evaluation of EI and MI by image processing methods seems suitable for quantitative evaluation of DCLE, since inadequate contact of the measuring head with the skin is avoided. Whether stasis or hyperpigmentation is more responsible for DCLE remains uncertain. Dermal thickness of eyelid skin may be involved in the appearance of DCLE.
Fluorescent image analysis for evaluating the condition of facial sebaceous follicles
Authors: Son Taeyoon , Han Byungkwan , Jung Byungjo , Nelson J. Stuart 
Published: July 2007

Background/purpose: Conventional methods, such as ‘Sebutape’ and ‘Sebumeter,’ can provide quantitative information on sebum excretion but cannot reflect the condition of sebaceous follicles that can be indirectly evaluated with fluorescent colors of sebum. The images of sebum excretion can be obtained with an ultraviolet‐A light that is generally called ‘Wood's Lamp.’ In this study, we describe fluorescent image analysis methods for the detection of sebum and the color segmentation of sebum to evaluate the condition of sebaceous follicles.Methods/results: For subject‐dependent automatic image analysis, we extracted calibrated image analysis methods that were optimized for digital fluorescent images acquired from our imaging system. The calibrated subjective threshold values for sebum detection were determined by statistically analyzing the number of sebum detected by the automatic threshold value method and the subjective threshold value method (R=0.947, the number of volunteers: 29). In fluorescent color analysis of sebum, the calibrated reference color markers for the red and white colors were extracted with a coefficient of variance of <10%.Conclusion: We are confident that such calibrated image analysis methods in combination with our imaging system can provide useful quantitative diagnostic information for sebum‐related skin pathologies.
Activation of T Cells by Cross‐Linking Qa‐2, the Ped Gene Product, Requires Fyn
Authors: De Fazio Sally R. , Warner Carol M. 
Published: July 2007

ProblemQa‐2, the product of the Ped (preimplantation development) gene, regulates the rate of cell division of preimplantation mouse embryos by an unknown mechanism. Due to the limited availability of preimplantation embryos, T cells were used as a model system to assess the possible roles of Fyn and Lck, and two downstream effectors, PI‐3 kinase and Akt, in Qa‐2 induced cell proliferation.Method of studyResting T cells were stimulated to proliferate by treating with mouse anti‐Qa‐2 antibody, cross‐linking with anti‐mouse immunoglobulin, and adding PMA. The effects of kinase inhibitors on this proliferation were studied. Co‐immunoprecipitates of T‐cell lysates were analyzed for possible associations between Qa‐2 and Fyn or Lck. Fyn knockout mice (Fyn−/−) were used to determine whether Fyn is required for T‐cell activation induced by cross‐linking Qa‐2.ResultsAn inhibitor of Src family kinases and inhibitors of PI‐3 kinase and Akt suppressed proliferation of resting T cells induced by cross‐linking Qa‐2. Fyn, but not Lck, co‐immunoprecipitated with Qa‐2. Fyn−/− T cells failed to proliferate in response to Qa‐2 cross‐linking.ConclusionFyn, PI‐3 kinase, and Akt are required for the activation of T cells by cross‐linking Qa‐2.
Elevated Th1/Th2 Cell Ratios in a Pregnant Woman with a History of RSA, Secondary Sjögren’s Syndrome and Rheumatoid Arthritis Complicated with One Fetal Demise of Twin Pregnancy
Authors: Kwak‐Kim Joanne , Lee Sung‐Ki , Gilman‐Sachs Alice 
Published: July 2007

ProblemElevated Th1/Th2 cytokine producing CD3+/CD4+ cell ratios were reported in women with a history of recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) and multiple implantation failures. We report, significantly elevated Th1/Th2 cell ratios were noticed in a pregnant woman with twin pregnancies complicated with one fetal demise, who had a history of RSA, secondary Sjögren’s syndrome (SS), and rheumatoid arthritis.Method of studyCase report.ResultsPeripheral blood Th1/Th2 cell ratios were significantly elevated 3 weeks prior to a fetal demise of twin pregnancies at 20 week gestation. Two weeks after fetal demise, the ratio of intracellular tumor necrosis factor‐α/interleukin‐10 producing CD3+/CD4+ cells in peripheral blood was further increased to three times higher than prior ratio. Elevated Th1/Th2 ratio was down regulated after increasing dose of IVIg treatment. The patient gave birth to a male baby weighing 2650 g at 36 weeks gestation. No serious complications were found in the patient or the baby.ConclusionSystemic inflammatory immune response pre‐exists prior to a fetal demise and the degree of inflammatory immune response got worse with a presence of fetal demise in utero. We infer that the placenta is not an immunological barrier to maternal Th1/Th2 immune responses.
Combined treatment with reboxetine in depressed patients with no response to venlafaxine: a 6-week follow-up study
Authors: Álamo Cecilio , López-Muñoz Francisco , Rubio Gabriel , García-García Pilar , Pardo Antonio 
Published: July 2007

Objective:The purpose of present study was to evaluate the efficacy of the addition of reboxetine in patients that had not previously responded, or had done so only partially, over 6 weeks of conventional pharmacological treatment with venlafaxine.Methods:This open-label, prospective and multicentric study included 40 outpatients diagnosed with major depressive disorder according to the DSM-IV criteria. Efficacy was assessed using the 21-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD) and the Clinical Global Impression-Improvement (CGI-I). Safety was evaluated by recording spontaneously reported adverse events. Data were analysed on an intent-to-treat basis, using the last-observation-carried-forward method.Results:Mean HAMD reduction was 34.9% (P < 0.0001). The percentages of responders (≥50% reduction in HAMD) and patients considered as benefiting from complete remission (HAMD ≤ 10 points) at week 6 were 27.5 and 12.5%, respectively. By the end of the treatment, the score of CGI-I decreased 24.8% (P < 0.0001). Percentage of patient improving (CGI < 4 points) was 47.5%. The most common non-serious adverse events were constipation, nervousness, anxiety and insomnia.Conclusion:These findings suggest that the combined treatment of reboxetine and venlafaxine, in venlafaxine-resistant patients, may be an effective and well-tolerated strategy.
Are obstetric complications related to adult schizophrenia? A case-control study
Authors: Amore Mario , Pisani Francesco , Balista Chiara , Sarchiapone Marco , McCreadie Robin 
Published: July 2007

Background:Early environmental events may be relevant to the etiology of schizophrenia. Among such events, interest has focused especially on obstetric complications (OCs).Objective:Aims of the study were to compare the incidence of OCs in patients, siblings and normal controls and to examine the relationship between OCs and later schizophrenia.Method:One hundred and thirteen patients with schizophrenia were recruited, as were 140 patients’ siblings and 113 controls without schizophrenia. The OCs history of patients, their sibs and controls was obtained through interviews with patients’ and controls’ mothers.Results:The results highlighted that more patients than sibs had at least one definite OC and a higher mean number of OCs; more patients had premature rupture of membranes, threatened abortion and a labor of more than 36 h.Conclusions:Our data provide some evidence for a link between OCs and later schizophrenia. Furthermore, this study highlights how OCs, which may cause fetal distress through a hypoxic-ischemic mechanism, could increase the risk of schizophrenia interacting with genetic susceptibility.
Heroin-dependent patients attempting and not attempting suicide: a comparison
Authors: Kalyoncu Ayhan , Mırsal Hasan , Pektaş Özkan , Tan Devran , Beyazyürek Mansur 
Published: July 2007

Objective:Heroin dependence is a serious illness associated with an increased risk of suicidal behaviour. There are many risk factors associated with heroin dependence. The current study examined the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of a number of young adult heroin-dependent patients who had attempted suicide.Methods:We studied a group of 108 young adult heroin-dependent patients in our in-patient clinics. All diagnoses were made according to DSM-IV diagnostic criteria using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I-II Disorders (SCID-I, II). The age range of patients was 18–24 years. Their substance abuse histories were assessed by semistructured interview. The Addiction Severity Index (ASI) was administered to all the patients. Serum total cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels were routinely measured. In the statistical analyses, Student’s t test, and chi-squared tests were applied.Results:Of the 108 heroin-dependent patients, 40 (37.0%) had histories of attempted suicide. There was a statistically significant difference in the age at which heroin use had commenced between female attempters [mean = 16.82, standard deviation (SD) = 3.06] and nonattempters (mean = 18.32, SD = 2.68, t= 2.25, P < 0.05). Both the male (mean = 33.35, SD = 4.05) and the female (mean = 28.00, SD = 5.36) attempters had significantly higher ASI scores than did the male (mean = 20.16, SD = 3.80) and the female (mean = 18.88, SD = 4.14) nonattempters (t= 14.34, P < 0.001; t= 5.25, P < 0.001, respectively). A significant difference in total cholesterol (mean = 131.8, SD = 19.3; mean = 172.2, SD = 21.3, t= 3.9, P < 0.05) and HDL-C (mean = 30.9, SD = 1.0 and mean = 54.8, SD = 13.7; t= 5.1, P < 0.05) levels between the group of violent and nonviolent suicide attempters was revealed.Conclusions:These results suggest that suicide attempts in young adult heroin-dependent patients are associated with more profound biopsychosocial pathology and decreased serum cholesterol levels. In particular, low levels of total cholesterol and HDL-C might indeed be associated with violent suicide attempts in young heroin-dependent patients.
The validity of the 21-item version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales as a routine clinical outcome measure
Authors: Ng Felicity , Trauer Tom , Dodd Seetal , Callaly Tom , Campbell Shirley , Berk Michael 
Published: July 2007

Objective:This study aimed to test the validity of the 21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21) as a routine clinical outcome measure in the private in-patient setting. We hypothesized that it would be a suitable routine outcome instrument in this setting.Method:All in-patients treated at a private psychiatric hospital over a period of 24 months were included in the study. Data were collected on demographics, service utilization, diagnosis and a set of four routine measures both at admission and discharge. These measures consisted of the Clinical Global Impressions (CGI) scales, Health of the Nation Outcome Scales (HoNOS), the Mental Health Questionnaire (MHQ-14) and DASS-21. The results of these measures were compared.Results:Of 786 admissions in total, the number of fully completed (ie paired admission and discharge) data sets for the DASS-21 depression, anxiety and stress subscales were 337, 328 and 347, respectively. All subscales showed statistically significant reductions in mean scores from admission to discharge (P< 0.001) and were significantly correlated with all MHQ-14 subscales and significantly related to CGI scale categories. The total DASS-21 and total HoNOS scores were also significantly correlated.Conclusions:The findings from the present study support the validity of DASS-21 as a routine clinical outcome measure in the private in-patient setting.
Our Aim of Truth
Authors: McNabb Vincent 
Published: July 2007

The true speaking absolutely is prior to the good, as appears from two reasons. First because the true is more closely related to being, which is prior to good. . . . Secondly, . . . knowledge naturally precedes appetite.” (Summa, la Qu. 16, Art 4, Eng. trans.)The object of the intellect (i.e. Truth) “is more simple and more absolute than the object of the will” (i.e. goodness). Therefore the intellect in itself and absolutely is higher and nobler than the will—yet “the love of God is better than the knowledge of God ; but on the contrary, the knowledge of corporeal things is better than the love thereof. Absolutely, however, the intellect is better than the will.” (Ibid., Qu. 82, Part 3.)These two texts from the Summa of the BLACKFRIAR St. Thomas Aquinas must outline the attitude of Blackfriars towards Truth.
A Note on Economics
Authors: Clayton Joseph 
Published: July 2007

The present hue and cry against the profiteer, whose elusive personality escapes arrest, and the discussion vehemently waged on die merits or demerits of “nationalization” divert attention from the root of the matter—the purpose or end of all productive labour.Ignoring the fundamental, the campaign against profiteering is naturally unsuccessful, and the arguments for and against “nationalization” are frequently irrelevant.The assumption that the present relations of capital and labour are, subject to slight modification, permanent, or, to put it m another way, that the directing control of labour must remain in the hands of the possessor of capital, commonly sways our minds. And this assumption, made somewhat rashly, largely prevents our clearing up present difficulties, or getting at the question of the purpose of production. Is the purpose private gain and profit? or the convenience and comfort of the community?
The English Medieval Gilds
Authors: Toke Leslie 
Published: July 2007

If we attempt to realize with any distinctness the life of the Middle Ages in this country, we are at first baffled by the fact that, while our fundamental human nature, with its passions and weakness, its heroism and its aspirations, remains much the same throughout recorded time, the material framework and the habits of society, the knowledge of nature and the philosophy of belief and conduct, all of which influence our judgment and colour the language in which we express it, have changed enormously. We find it very difficult to grasp the real reasons why men created the institutions under which they lived and clung to them when they seemed to have decayed, to understand why their point of view was so different from our own, or, indeed, to realize at all that the people, who dressed and lodged and bought and sold, and at times acted so differently from ourselves, were men and women like ourselves and, generally, at least, as practical and as keen-witted as we are.Indeed, the modern English people, ultimately as a result of that orgy of destructive licence which is called the Reformation, and immediately as a mental effect of the unstable and irrational social conditions which have grown out of that revolt, seems to have lost all sense of historic time, as (and, perhaps, because) it has lost most of its popular traditions. To the average modem Englishman fifty years back is ancient history, while five hundred years ago, if he attempts to think of such a distant period at all, is a dim period in which queer, primitive people acted in queer ways from sheer ignorance and barbarism.
Nationalization
Authors: Belloc Hilaire 
Published: July 2007

In sundry European countries, but more especially in Britain, because Britain is the most completely Capitalist of all, there has arisen a practical demand for the “ Nationalization “ of certain great industries.This demand is certain to be pressed in the case of several industries—notably railways and mines—to an issue ; and the effort will probably be a victory for those who demand Nationalization. For these have the power of forcing the victory, and their opponents have no effective defence in action. It behoves us, therefore, to examine the origin, motive, object, and— what is most important of all—probable result of this policy.
The Song of Deborah
Authors: Walker Luke 
Published: July 2007

English Catholics are not generally credited with much interest in the Old Testament. Their preference for the Imitation of Christ, say, as spiritual reading is easily intelligible. At the same time one would think that, considered merely as the early history of that unique nation, the Jews, the Old Testament would have a certain claim on the interest of educated people. But it also happens that the history of that nation is equally, for several thousand years, the history of Revelation.At first sight it is perhaps surprising that in presence of the revelation of the Son of God the religious history of Israel should still keep some element of value. The inevitable tendency to scrap, as far as Christians were concerned, the story of that nation naturally crystallized in a very determined effort. It was made, about the middle of the second century, by that acute heretic, Marcion. Marcion’s theory, says Professor Burkitt in one of his stimulating lectures on The Gospel History and its Transmission “ is a theory of catastrophe : a new God comes down from nowhere, and proclaims true religion for the first time. And closely allied with Marcion’s rejection of the Old Testament history as being in any sense the history of true religion was his denial of the reality of our Lord’s body as being in any sense true flesh and blood.” It is a matter of faith that the Old Testament contains true revelation. “ The Church was determined to maintain its claim to be the true heir of the promises of the Old Testament, the promises made of old to the fathers.
Westminster Cathedral
Authors: Gill Eric 
Published: July 2007

What is to be said of Westminster Cathedral? Is it a great building? Is it more than a big building? The almost universal verdict is in the affirmative. It is not petty. It is a work of genius.Now, genius has been defined as the will and ability to “put the first thing first,” and certainly Bentley did so at Westminster. Whatever others may have said, Bentley did not say : the first thing is to make a big Byzantine Church. The first thing he did was to envisage a great building suitable for Christian worship, and, again putting the first thing first, he did not say it shall rival Beauvais in height or Rheims in sculpture ; he said : this great Christian Church shall be built of massive piers of brick spanned by vaults of concrete—these are the available materials, and I am not crying for the moon of medieval delight. He did not use such words, nor could he have used them. He was an old-fashioned English architect and was not aware of the social problem. He even dreamed of a building covered with a veneer of marble and mosaic ! But though that was his dream, and even partly his achievement, he saw his church as a great building first and only second as a much adorned one.This is obvious from the accomplished thing and is admitted even by those people who still, in this pagan age, hanker after pointed arches and pinnacles.
The Royal Academy
Authors: Hagreen Philip 
Published: July 2007

A few years ago, to speak of the progress of the Royal Academy would have been a contradiction in terms ; but a perusal of this year’s exhibition shows that the apparently impossible has happened. As I had not visited the Academy for six or seven years, the improvement was probably more apparent to me than it would have been to those who consider a regular attendance to be part of their duty as Englishmen. The stirring to life of this stagnant institution is partly due to the enlightenment of its members ; but to a greater extent to a series of accidents.The chief sign of grace in the Hanging Committee is shown in a definite attempt to exhibit pictures so that they may be seen ; and to limit the number of exhibits to that end. The old way was to stop hanging only when the last inch of wall-space had been covered. Let us hope that the Committee will carry this practice of selection a step further in the future. Before the war the average number of exhibits exceeded 2000 ; this year there are 1477, of which a number cannot be seen properly, and a larger number no one wishes to see. The Augean stables are only very partially cleansed. The exhibition might with advantage be considerably reduced if more good work were not sent in. Rather should the good pictures be spread thinner, than that space should be filled for the amusement of that type of vulgar mind which delights in drunken monks and mawkish sentimentality.
At the Leicester Galleries
Authors: Hagreen Philip 
Published: July 2007

It would be interesting if statistics could be obtained showing the relative number of people who attend concerts and of those who visit exhibitions of painting, sculpture, etc. I am always amazed at the fewness of the latter, except in the case of the Royal Academy, when I am equally amazed at their number.We cannot measure the enjoyment received from music and the graphic arts, but there is an element of adventure in most exhibitions which is almost entirely lacking in a concert. The concert can vary little from its published programme ; in an exhibition every work may be a surprise. I will take the April exhibition at the Leicester Galleries as an example.The advertisements announced only that there would be work by Mr. Mark Fisher, R.A., and Miss E. Fortescue-Brickdale, R.W.S. No hint was given as to what the third room would contain nor as to what bronzes, etc., would fill up the odd comers. These unannounced items were a most varied collection of drawings, paintings and sculpture, ranging from Gainsborough to Epstein. The works shown in the window were alone worth a pilgrimage. I will mention a few of the exhibits as they occur to my memory.