bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Does the photon have a future? An overview of potential benefits associated with hadron therapy
Authors: Bridge P. 
Published: January 2005

Hadron therapy uses sub-atomic particles to deliver radiotherapy and has the capability of delivering to an increased depth compared to photons. This offers the potential of conformal therapy without the increased integral dose associated with intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). In addition, there is the possibility of hadron therapy having increased relative biological effectiveness (RBE) when compared to photons. There is increasing interest in this topic currently with the possibility of a second UK hadron therapy facility being under discussion.This paper introduces the concept of hadron therapy and presents an evaluation of the potential benefits associated with it. Planning studies and clinical trials are reviewed in order to assess the impact that hadron therapy would have on patient management. Costs and other factors affecting the implementation of a hadron therapy facility are presented.The proven benefits of hadron therapy are easily demonstrated by the planning studies with increased conformity and reduced integral dose over a range of tumour sites. Simple hadron plans consistently out-perform complicated IMRT plans. The costs associated with hadron facilities are higher than for photons, but they offer simplified planning due to the inherent conformality achievable with simple hadron beams. As costs decrease and technology improves, the benefits of hadron therapy may result in the replacement of the photon for radiotherapy.
Radiographer review clinics: breast cancer
Authors: Cameron J. 
Published: January 2005

Acute skin reactions are expected in patients receiving radical radiotherapy to the breast. Side effects of other adjuvant treatments such as chemotherapy and hormonal therapy can further impact upon patients' well being. As a result these patients are routinely monitored throughout their radiotherapy treatment at a review clinic. Previously the domain of doctors, radiographers are expanding their existing role and becoming more involved in review clinics.This paper highlights the key side effects reported by actual patients from their adjuvant treatment and strategies to alleviate these side effects. It also reflects upon the experience, both positive and negative, of undertaking clinical review and role expansion in general.
Conventional and contemporary management approaches for the treatment of vestibular schwannomas: Microsurgery versus radiosurgery, a literature review
Authors: Hickey K. 
Published: January 2005

The management of intracerebral tumours has always provided us with a challenge when deciding upon the best treatment approach. However, when such tumours are benign and located in close proximity to critical structures, tumour management becomes all the more challenging.The treatment of vestibular schwannomas has always posed such problems because of their anatomical proximity to critical structures such as the brainstem and several cranial nerves. Through a comprehensive literature appraisal, this article evaluates the problems associated with conventional treatment options and discusses how technical advances over the past decades have affected disease management and therefore impacted on the range and type of treatment modalities employed. In addition, it highlights the role of alternative contemporary approaches in the management of vestibular schwannomas.
Symptomatic treatment of radiation-induced mucositis in head and neck cancer: current practice, literature review and evidence-based recommendations
Authors: Pacitti C. A. 
Published: January 2005

Background: Oro-pharyngeal mucositis is a common complication of radical radiotherapy for head and neck cancer and may be the major treatment dose-limiting factor. Symptomatic treatment, however, appears variable and often ineffective.Aim: To assess current UK practice, review published literature to assess the evidence base for current mucositis interventions and develop an evidence-based protocol for local use based on this knowledge.Methods: An open-ended, qualitative questionnaire was sent to twenty UK Radiotherapy Departments to provide a sample of the current use of symptomatic treatments, including analgesia. A literature search was conducted using Medline and Cochrane databases to provide an evidence-based recommendation for the development of an effective local management protocol.Results: Sixteen departments returned completed questionnaires (80% response rate). Eleven different pharmaceutical preparations were being used for symptomatic relief, with benzydamine (Difflam Oral Rinse) and Mucaine being the most commonly prescribed (in five departments each). Eleven different analgesics were being prescribed ranging from soluble aspirin to continuous infusion of diamorphine. The conclusion of a Cochrane Collaboration systematic review of the literature found weak or no evidence for the use of current interventions as effective agents for the relief or eradication of treatment-related mucositis.Conclusions: For such a common and important treatment toxicity, there is no consistent symptomatic management and there is no good evidence-base for the use of any of the presently prescribed medications. Clinical trials have involved small samples and little replication of studies. Evidence does exist for the importance of good oral hygiene before, during and after treatment, and this has formed the basis of our new departmental protocol with discontinuation of the use of commercial mouthwashes.
Moral Hazard, Inspection Policy, and Food Safety
Authors: Starbird S. Andrew 
Published: January 2005

AbstractBuyers have imperfect information about the food safety efforts exerted by suppliers. To gather information about safety, buyers often employ sampling inspection. Sampling inspection exhibits sampling error so some unsafe product passes inspection and some safe product does not. This uncertainty influences buyer and supplier behavior. In this article, I use a principal‐agent model to examine how sampling inspection policies influence food safety. I use the model to examine the sampling inspection policies in the 1996 Pathogen Reduction/Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Act. I conclude that the regulation of sampling inspection procedures is an effective tool for policy makers who wish to improve food safety.
Living with the Curse of Dimensionality: Closed‐Loop Optimization in a Large‐Scale Fisheries Simulation Model
Authors: Woodward Richard T. , Wui Yong‐Suhk , Griffin Wade L. 
Published: January 2005

AbstractFacilitated by remarkable increases in computational speed, simulation models are becoming more and more complex and are being increasingly used in applied economic analysis. However, computational limitations remain a major barrier to the study of dynamically optimal policies. We study the problem of carrying out dynamic optimization in conjunction with large simulation models and propose a method for working around the computational difficulties that arise in such problems. Our methods are applied to a model of the Gulf of Mexico's red snapper fishery to study the dynamically optimal total allowable catch.
Behavioral and Welfare Effects of Tournaments and Fixed Performance Contracts: Some Experimental Evidence
Authors: Wu Steven , Roe Brian 
Published: January 2005

AbstractUsing experimental economics, we compare the efficiency and welfare effects of tournaments and fixed performance contracts. Our subjects (agents) were generally better off under fixed performance contracts, but the advantage of the fixed performance contract disappears if the relative magnitude of the standard deviation of the common shock exceeds a critical value. Efficiency wise, agents tend to exert higher effort under fixed performance contracts, on average. Additionally, an increase in the common shock standard deviation appeared to be associated with lower effort under tournaments. Our results shed light on the potential impact of legislative proposals to ban tournament contracts.
Phenotypic and Functional Characterization of Clinical Grade Dendritic Cells Generated from Patients with Advanced Breast Cancer for Therapeutic Vaccination
Authors: Pedersen A. E. , Thorn M. , Gad M. , Walter M. R. , Johnsen H. E. , Gaarsdal E. , Nikolajsen K. , Buus S. , Claesson M. H. , Svane I. M. 
Published: January 2005

AbstractDendritic cells (DC) are promising candidates for cancer immunotherapy. However, it is not known whether in vitro‐generated monocyte‐derived DC from cancer patients are altered compared with DC from healthy donors. In a clinical phase I/II study, monocyte‐derived DC were generated in vitro utilizing granulocyte macrophage colony‐stimulating factor and rh‐interleukin‐4 (IL‐4) and used for cancer immunotherapy. In this study, we tested the effect of various maturation cocktails and performed a comparative evaluation of the DC phenotype and functional characteristics. Polyriboinosinic polyribocytidylic acid (Poly I:C) + tumour necrosis factor‐alpha (TNF‐α) induced significant IL‐12 p70 secretion, which was increased after addition of a decoy IL‐10 receptor. The lymph node homing chemokine receptor CCR‐7 expression was induced by TNF‐α + IL‐1β + IL‐6 + prostaglandin E2 but was not induced by Poly I:C + TNF‐α. In general, DC from patients had an intermediate maturity phenotype with a significantly higher expression of CD40 and CD54 compared with healthy donors. In vitro analyses showed an unimpaired capacity of the patient‐derived DC for antigen‐specific (cytomegalovirus, tetanus and keyhole limpet haemocyanin) T‐cell stimulation, whereas the allostimulatory capacity of patient‐derived DC was significantly decreased. These data suggest that patient‐derived DC are more differentiated but are less sensitive to maturation‐inducing agents than DC obtained from healthy individuals.
Structurally Derived Mutations Define Congenital Heart Block‐Related Epitopes Within the 200–239 Amino Acid Stretch of the Ro52 Protein
Authors: Ottosson L. , Salomonsson S. , Hennig J. , Sonesson S.‐E. , Dörner T. , Raats J. , Kuchroo V. K. , Sunnerhagen M. , Wahren‐Herlenius M. 
Published: January 2005

AbstractCongenital heart block is a passively transferred autoimmune condition, which affects the children of mothers with Ro/SSA autoantibodies. During pregnancy, the antibodies are transported across the placenta and affect the fetus. We have previously demonstrated that antibodies directed to the 200–239 amino acid (aa) stretch of the Ro52 component of the Ro/SSA antigen correlate with the development of congenital heart block. In this report, we investigated the antibody–antigen interaction of this target epitope in detail at a molecular and structural level. Peptides representing aa 200–239 (p200) with structurally derived mutations were synthesized to define the epitopes recognized by two Ro52 human monoclonal antibodies, S3A8 and M4H1, isolated from patient‐derived phage display libraries. Analyses by ELISA, circular dichroism and MALDI‐TOF‐MS demonstrate that the antibody recognition is dependent on a partly α‐helical fold within the putative leucine zipper of the 200–239 aa stretch and that the two human anti‐p200 monoclonal antibodies, M4H1 and S3A8, recognize different epitopic structures within the p200 peptide. In addition, we investigated the representation of each fine specificity within the sera of mothers with children born with congenital heart block, and in such sera, antibodies of the S3A8 idiotype were more commonly detected and at higher levels than M4H1‐like antibodies.
Genetic Segregation of Spontaneous Erosive Arthritis and Generalized Autoimmune Disease in the BXD2 Recombinant Inbred Strain of Mice
Authors: Mountz J. D. , Yang P. , Wu Q. , Zhou J. , Tousson A. , Fitzgerald A. , Allen J. , Wang X. , Cartner S. , Grizzle W. E. , Yi N. , Lu L. , Williams R. W. , Hsu H.‐C. 
Published: January 2005

AbstractThe BXD2 strain of mice is one of approximately 80 BXD recombinant inbred (RI) mouse strains derived from an intercross between C57BL/6J (B6) and DBA/2J (D2) strains. We have discovered that adult BXD2 mice spontaneously develop generalized autoimmune disease, including glomerulonephritis (GN), increased serum titres of rheumatoid factor (RF) and anti‐DNA antibody, and a spontaneous erosive arthritis characterized by mononuclear cell infiltration, synovial hyperplasia, and bone and cartilage erosion. The features of lupus and arthritis developed by the BXD2 mice segregate in F2 mice generated by crossing BXD2 mice with the parental B6 and D2 strains. Genetic linkage analysis of the serum levels of anti‐DNA and RF by using the BXD RI strains shows that the serum titers of anti‐DNA and RF were influenced by a genetic locus on mouse chromosome (Chr) 2 near the marker D2Mit412 (78 cm, 163 Mb) and on Chr 4 near D4Mit146 (53.6 cm, 109 Mb), respectively. Both loci are close to the B‐cell hyperactivity, lupus or GN susceptibility loci that have been identified previously. The results of our study suggest that the BXD2 strain of mice is a novel model for complex autoimmune disease that will be useful in identifying the mechanisms critical for the immunopathogenesis and genetic segregation of lupus and erosive arthritis.
Immunological Characterization of Novel Secreted Antigens of Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Authors: Amor Y. B. , Shashkina E. , Johnson S. , Bifani P. J. , Kurepina N. , Kreiswirth B. , Bhattacharya S. , Spencer J. , Rendon A. , Catanzaro A. , Gennaro M. L. 
Published: January 2005

AbstractProteins secreted by Mycobacterium tuberculosis are targets of host immune responses and as such are investigated for vaccine and immunodiagnostics development. Computer‐driven searches of the M. tuberculosis H37Rv genome had previously identified 45 novel secreted proteins. Here, we report the characterization of these antigens in terms of specificity for the M. tuberculosis complex and the ability to induce human immune responses. BLAST homology searches and Southern hybridization identified 10 genes that were either specific for the M. tuberculosis complex or found in only two nontuberculous mycobacterial species of minor medical significance. Selected recombinant proteins were purified from Escherichia coli cells and tested for the ability to elicit antibody responses in tuberculosis patients. Reactivity of the serum panel was ` 36% with at least one of five novel proteins (Rv0203, Rv0603, Rv1271c, Rv1804c and Rv2253), 56% with the 38 kDa lipoprotein, a M. tuberculosis antigen known to be highly seroreactive, and 68% with a combination of Rv0203, Rv1271c and the 38 kDa antigen. Thus, at least five novel secreted proteins induce antibody responses during active disease; some of these proteins may increase the sensitivity of serological assays based on the 38 kDa antigen.
Phylogeny and biogeography of cichlid fishes (Teleostei: Perciformes: Cichlidae)
Authors: Sparks John S. , Smith Wm. Leo 
Published: January 2005

AbstractFamily level molecular phylogenetic analyses of cichlid fishes have generally suffered from a limited number of characters and/or poor taxonomic sampling across one or more major geographic assemblage, and therefore have not provided a robust test of early intrafamilial diversification. Herein we use both nuclear and mitochondrial nucleotide characters and direct optimization to reconstruct a phylogeny for cichlid fishes. Representatives of major cichlid lineages across all geographic assemblages are included, as well as nearly twice the number of characters as any prior family‐level study. In a strict consensus of 81 equally most‐parsimonious hypotheses, based on the simultaneous analysis of 2222 aligned nucleotide characters from two mitochondrial and two nuclear genes, four major subfamilial lineages are recovered with strong support. Etroplinae, endemic to Madagascar (Paretroplus) and southern Asia (Etroplus), is recovered as the sister taxon to the remainder of Cichlidae. Although the South Asian cichlids are monophyletic, the Malagasy plus South Asian lineages are not. The remaining Malagasy lineage, Ptychochrominae, is monophyletic and is recovered as the sister group to a clade comprising the African and Neotropical cichlids. The African (Pseudocrenilabrinae) and Neotropical (Cichlinae) lineages are each monophyletic in this reconstruction. The use of multiple molecular markers, from both mitochondrial and nuclear genes, results in a phylogeny that in general exhibits strong support, notably for early diversification events within Cichlidae. Results further indicate that Labroidei is not monophyletic, and that the sister group to Cichlidae may comprise a large and diverse assemblage of percomorph lineages. This hypothesis may at least partly explain why morphological studies that have attempted to place Cichlidae within Percomorpha, or that have tested cichlid monophyly using only “labroid” lineages, have met with only limited success.© The Willi Hennig Society 2004.
The phylogenetic position of Siboglinidae (Annelida) inferred from 18S rRNA, 28S rRNA and morphological data
Authors: Rousset Vincent , Rouse Greg W. , Siddall Mark E. , Tillier Annie , Pleijel Fredrik 
Published: January 2005

AbstractWe assess the phylogenetic position of Siboglinidae (previously known as the phyla Pogonophora and Vestimentifera, but now referred to Annelida) in parsimony analyses of 1100 bp from 18S rRNA, 320 bp from the D1 region of 28S rRNA, and 107 morphological characters, totaling 667 parsimony informative characters. The 34 terminal taxa, apart from six siboglinids, include polychaete members of Sabellida, Terbelliformia, Cirratuliformia and Spionida, plus two Aciculata polychaetes as outgroups. Our results contradict most recent hypotheses in showing a sistergroup relationship between Siboglinidae and Oweniidae, and in that the latter taxon is not a member of Sabellida. Furthermore, our results indicate that Sabellariidae is not closely related to Sabellida, that Serpulidae may be nested within Sabellidae, and that Alvinellidae is nested within Ampharetidae.© The Willi Hennig Society 2004.
Fireblight in Békés County (Hungary) in 1996/20021
Authors: Zsolt M. 
Published: January 2005

Fireblight (Erwinia amylovora) appeared in Hungary in 1996. Most damage occurred on apple, pear, quince and medlar, and also on the ornamentals Pyracantha, Sorbus, Cotoneaster and Crataegus. In 1996–2006, an official programme for elimination of infected parts of plants started in Békés county. This mainly concerned trees in towns and villages, since there are few pome‐fruit orchards in the county. Work teams under official direction pruned back or cut down trees. In total, some 13 000 trees were pruned back and nearly 11 000 were cut down. In addition, 21 villages were subjected to special phytosanitary measures. Infection decreased considerably between 1996 and 2002, but over 90% of the inhabited areas in the county remained subject to special measures, because of the very dispersed occurrence of fireblight.
Determination of the fatigue fracture planes of Co–Cr–Mo biomedical alloys using electron backscatter diffraction
Authors: WANG S. C. , BROWNE M. , UBHI H. S. , STARINK M. J. 
Published: January 2005

SummaryElectron backscatter diffraction on a scanning electron microscope has been utilized to acquire crystal orientation information around faceted fatigue cracks in a Co–Cr–Mo alloy for medical implants. The faceted fracture planes are unambiguously determined as {111} planes.
Microstructural characterization of autogenous laser welds on 316L stainless steel using EBSD and EDS
Authors: KELL J. , TYRER J. R. , HIGGINSON R. L. , THOMSON R. C. 
Published: January 2005

SummaryThis research is concerned with autogenous welding of 316L stainless steel and the microstructure generated by such a process. Autogenous welding does not require a filler material and in this case relies on an initial shallow melt phase to maintain a conduction limited weld. Essentially, a high power laser beam traverses the substrate, with the beam shaped by conventional optics, which produces a Gaussian irradiance distribution; or with a diffractive optical element, used to produce a uniform irradiance distribution.Initial results have shown that due to the nature of the heating cycle, complex microstructures are developed. These fine, complicated microstructures cannot be satisfactorily resolved and quantified using standard optical microscopy techniques. Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) have been carried out on a number of different microstructures prepared using a range of welding parameters. It is demonstrated that the simultaneous determination of the chemistry and crystallography is a very useful tool for rapid identification of the different phases formed on solidification as a consequence of varying welding procedures.
A truncated H‐NS‐like protein from enteropathogenic Escherichia coli acts as an H‐NS antagonist
Authors: Williamson Helen S. , Free Andrew 
Published: January 2005

SummaryThe H‐NS nucleoid‐associated protein of Escherichia coli is the founder member of a widespread family of gene regulatory proteins which have a bipartite structure, consisting of an N‐terminal coiled‐coil oligomerization domain and a C‐terminal DNA‐binding domain. Here we characterize a family of naturally occurring truncated H‐NS derivatives lacking the DNA‐binding domain, which we term the H‐NST family. H‐NST proteins are found in large genomic islands in pathogenic E. coli strains, which are absent from the corresponding positions in the E. coli K‐12 genome. Detailed analysis of the H‐NST proteins from enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC) and uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) shows that the EPEC protein (H‐NSTEPEC) has a potent anti‐H‐NS function at the classical H‐NS‐repressed operon proU. This correlates with the ability of H‐NSTEPEC to co‐purify with H‐NS in vitro, and can be abolished by a mutation of leucine 30 to proline which is predicted to prevent the N‐terminal region from forming a coiled‐coil structure. In contrast, despite being 90% identical to H‐NSTEPEC at the protein level, the UPEC homologue (H‐NSTUPEC) has only a weak anti‐H‐NS activity, correlating with a much‐reduced ability to interact with H‐NS during column chromatography. A single amino acid difference at residue 16 appears to account for these different properties. The hnsTEPEC gene is transcribed monocistronically and expressed throughout the exponential growth phase in DMEM medium. Our data suggest that a truncated derivative of H‐NS encoded by an ancestral mobile DNA element can interact with the endogenous H‐NS regulatory network of a bacterial pathogen.