bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Inadequate asthma treatment practices and noncompliance in Israel*
Authors: Eshel Gideon , Raviv Ravit , Ben‐Abraham Ron , Barr Joseph , Berkovitch Mati , Efrati Ori , Vardi Amir , Barzilay Zohar , Paret Gideon 
Published: August 2002

AbstractChildhood asthma morbidity and mortality are increasing despite improvements in asthma therapy. The changes over the past decade in the guidelines for treatment of children with severe asthma have led to a reduction in admissions and readmissions to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). The Israeli medical infrastructure is exemplary in its capability of extending appropriate medical services to its entire population. Our objective was to look at the background of preventive maintenance treatment and treatment during an acute episode in children admitted to PICUs with severe asthma, and to identify areas that could be targeted for change. A 5‐year retrospective chart audit on acute asthma admissions was conducted in two PICUs of general community hospitals representative of the provision of medical care in Israel. The prehospitalization preventive management and acute treatment prior to PICU admission were evaluated, and the number of admissions and readmissions was recorded.The index admission was the first episode of acute asthma for only 3% of the children: 25% of patients required readmission, and 15% of these to the PICU. In spite of a proven history of acute exacerbations of the disease, only 60% were on continuous treatment between attacks, and 29% of them had abruptly discontinued treatment, most of them shortly before the onset of the index attack. Inhaled steroids were used as maintenance and preventive treatment by less than one‐third of the children, with the other two‐thirds receiving mainly beta‐2 agonists drugs.In conclusion, an unacceptably large proportion of asthmatic children do not receive the recommended maintenance and preventive treatment because of poor compliance, lack of education, or insufficient healthcare provision. This has probably led to avoidable recurrences of acute asthma exacerbations and unnecessary use of PICU facilities. These findings suggest that steps for implementing recommended guidelines and an educational program are needed. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2002; 33:85–89. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Cellular and noncellular components of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid in HIV‐1‐infected children with radiological evidence of interstitial lung damage*
Authors: Midulla Fabio , Strappini PierMichele , Sandstrom Thomas , Bjermer Leif , Falasca Carlo , Capocaccia Paolo , Catania Salvatore , Soldi Elisabetta , Villa Maria Pia , Ronchetti Roberto 
Published: August 2002

AbstractChildren with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) commonly have recurrent infectious and noninfectious lung complications that ultimately end in death. To study the intensity of alveolar inflammation and to evaluate the clinical utility of bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) in children with HIV‐1 infections, we retrospectively analyzed differential cell counts, lymphocyte subsets, and fibronectin and hyaluronic acid concentrations in BAL fluid of 18 HIV‐1‐positive children (9 boys, mean age 3.5 years, range 5 months–8 years) with radiological evidence of interstitial lung disease, and 19 control children who had undergone BAL for clinical indications not involving the lung parenchyma (13 boys, mean age 3 years, range 2 months–14 years).BAL fluid from 89% of the HIV‐1 infected children showed CD8+ve lymphocytic alveolitis expressing HLA‐DR, CD54, and CD 69 antigens. BAL fluid from HIV‐infected patients typically contained markedly increased percentages and numbers of lymphocytes (P < 0.0001) and eosinophils (P < 0.04) and significantly higher concentrations of albumin (P <  0.05) and fibronectin (P < 0.0006) than fluids from control children. Whereas BAL cellular components did not differ in P. carinii‐positive and P. carinii‐negative HIV‐1‐infected children, fibronectin concentrations were significantly higher in P. carinii‐positive than negative children. BAL cell differentials and noncellular components were related neither to severity of disease nor to patients' disease progression.These findings indicate that BAL is useful in studying the intensity of lung inflammation in children with HIV‐1 infections and radiologically documented interstitial lung disease, but provides no information on the subsequent clinical course. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2001; 31:205–213. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Linear programming optimization and a double statistical filter for protein threading protocols
Authors: Meller Jaroslaw , Elber Ron 
Published: August 2002

AbstractThe design of scoring functions (or potentials) for threading, differentiating native‐like from non‐native structures with a limited computational cost, is an active field of research. We revisit two widely used families of threading potentials: the pairwise and profile models. To design optimal scoring functions we use linear programming (LP). The LP protocol makes it possible to measure the difficulty of a particular training set in conjunction with a specific form of the scoring function. Gapless threading demonstrates that pair potentials have larger prediction capacity compared with profile energies. However, alignments with gaps are easier to compute with profile potentials. We therefore search and propose a new profile model with comparable prediction capacity to contact potentials. A protocol to determine optimal energy parameters for gaps, using LP, is also presented. A statistical test, based on a combination of local and globalZ‐scores, is employed to filter out false‐positives. Extensive tests of the new protocol are presented. The new model provides an efficient alternative for threading with pair energies, maintaining comparable accuracy. The code, databases, and a prediction server are available athttp://www.tc.cornell.edu/CBIO/loopp. Proteins 2001;45:241–261. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Bioactive Somatostatin Analog without a Type II′ β‐Turn: Synthesis and Conformational Analysis in Solution
Authors: Jiang Shaokai , Gazal Sharon , Gelerman Gary , Ziv Ofer , Karpov Olga , Litman Pninit , Bracha Moshe , Afargan Michael , Gilon Chaim , Goodman Murray 
Published: August 2002

AbstractA cyclic somatostatin analog (1) has been synthesized. Biological assays show that this compound has strong binding affinities to somatostatin hsst2 and hsst5 receptor subtypes (5.2 and 1.2 nM, respectively, and modest affinity to hsst4 (41.1 nM)). Our conformational analysis carried out in DMSO‐d6 indicates that this compound exists as two structures arising from the trans and cis configurations of the peptide bond between Phe7 and N‐alkylated Gly8. However, neither conformer exhibits a type II′ β‐turn. This is the first report of a potent bioactive somatostatin analog that does not exhibit a type II′ β‐turn in solution. Molecular dynamics simulations (500 ps) carried out at 300 K indicate that the backbone of compound 1 is more flexible than other cyclic somatostatin analogs formed by disulfide bonds. Copyright © 2001 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Toxicity of chloroform extract of Prunus africana stem bark in rats: gross and histological lesions
Authors: Gathumbi P. K. , Mwangi J. W. , Mugera G. M. , Njiro S. M. 
Published: August 2002

AbstractChloroform extract of Prunus africana (Hook f. (Rosaceae) did not cause clinical signs or pathology in rats at daily oral doses of up to 1000 mg/kg for 8 weeks. The extract caused marked clinical signs, organ damage and a 50% mortality rate at a dose of 3.3 g/kg for 6 days. The main lesions observed at this dose were marked centrilobular hepatocellular degeneration and necrosis, diffuse nephrosis, myocardial degeneration, lymphocytic necrosis and neuronal degeneration.The morphological damage in these tissues caused a corresponding rise in blood biochemical parameters namely, aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, lactate dehydrogenase, creatine kinase and blood urea nitrogen. The target organs of toxicity of this extract are the liver, kidney and heart. Overt toxicity occurred only after the administration of multiple doses of 3.3 g/kg body weight. These findings confirm the suitability of this extract for therapeutic use, since the doses used in the therapy of prostate gland are much lower than those used in this study and would therefore not be expected to cause pathological changes. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
What's new?
Authors: Bohaychuk Wendy 
Published: August 2002

AbstractThe What's New? section in the Quality Assurance Journal aims to draw attention to items of importance to QA professionals. Since there is a three‐month period between final submission of manuscripts and distribution of the journal, the items noted below will be at least three months old by the time you read them: for this issue, the entries arise from the period of 21 November 2001 to 25 February 2002. If you feel that there is any other new information that should be brought to the attention of readers, please let us know by e‐mailing wbohaychuk@gcrpc.com Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Calculation of molecular integrals for systems confined by hard spherical walls: Use of the single‐center expansion of floating spherical gaussians
Authors: Cruz S. A. , Soullard J. 
Published: August 2002

AbstractAssuming a gaussian basis set representation of atomic and molecular wave functions, the single‐center expansion of off‐centered spherical gaussian orbitals is exploited to calculate the one and two‐electron integrals for multielectronic atoms and molecules confined within hard spherical walls. As a validating test, the ground‐state energy of a helium atom positioned off‐center in a spherical box is calculated by applying the simplest form of the floating spherical gaussian orbital (FSGO) scheme, i.e., the use of a primitive basis set consisting of a single FSGO per electron pair. Comparison with corresponding recent accurate calculations gives supporting evidence of the adequacy of the method for its application to more elaborate gaussian‐type basis set representations for confined atoms and molecules. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quant Chem 83: 271–278, 2001
Linear, cyclic, and Möbius strip polyacenes: The influence of the topology on the size‐dependent HOMO–LUMO energy gap
Authors: André Jean‐Marie , Champagne Benoît , Perpète Eric A. , Guillaume Maxime 
Published: August 2002

AbstractThe electronic structure of finite and infinite linear, cyclic, and Möbius strip polyacenes has been investigated by adopting simple Hückel methodology without and with variable β resonance integrals and the more involved MNDO scheme. Using the Hückel approach, it turns out that the linear polyacenes and the Möbius ladder molecules exhibit HOMO–LUMO gap which monotonously decrease with chain length while their cyclic analogs have a sawtooth behavior. The originality of the approach is to combine band structure and MO approaches to get analytical forms of the energy levels. These results are corroborated at the MNDO levels where the geometry relaxation effects are taken into account. The optimized MNDO structures show that the Möbius defect is localized and extends over approximately one‐third of the ladder. Accounting for geometry distortion at the MNDO level results in an increase of the gap of the Möbius strip relative to the linear and cyclic finite size structures, but the similar results for the two methods confirm that the topology is the main factor acting on HOMO–LUMO energy gaps. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quant Chem, 2001
Theoretical study of the Si–H group as potential hydrogen bond donor
Authors: Alkorta Ibon , Rozas Isabel , Elguero Jose 
Published: August 2002

AbstractThe ability of the Si–H group as hydrogen bond (HB) donor has been studied theoretically. Most of the selected molecules include the Si–H group in a polar environment that could produce an electron deficiency on the hydrogen atom. In addition, analogous derivatives where the silicon atom has been replaced by a carbon atom have been considered. In all cases, ammonia has been used as HB acceptor. The calculations have been carried out at the MP2/6‐311++G** computational level. The electron density of the complexes has been characterized within the atoms in molecules (AIM) framework. A search in the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) has been carried out to verify the existence of this kind of interactions in solid phase. The results of the theoretical study on these HB complexes between ammonia and the silicon derivatives provides long HB distances (2.4 to 3.2 Å) and small interaction energies (−2.4 to −0.2 kcal/mol). In all cases, the HBs of the corresponding carbon analogs show shorter interaction distances corresponding to stronger complexes. The CSD search provides a small number of short interactions between Si and other heavy atoms in agreement with the small stabilizing energy of the Si–HN HB and the lack of SiH bond in polar environment within the database. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2001
Structural characterisation of Baltic amber and its solvent extracts by several mass spectrometric methods
Authors: Islas C. A. , Suelves I. , Carter J. F. , Herod A. A. , Kandiyoti R. 
Published: August 2002

AbstractA sample of Baltic amber (∼40 million yrs old) has been extracted using pentane, toluene and 1‐methyl‐2‐pyrrolidinone (NMP). The relationship between solubility characteristics of the extracts in relation to molecular mass and chemical makeup has been investigated. The extracts were first characterised by 13C‐NMR spectrometry, size exclusion chromatography (SEC) and UV‐fluorescence spectroscopy. The fractions differed less in terms of chemical structural features than they did in terms of molecular mass. This contrasts markedly with data on fractions of coal‐derived liquids, but parallels results from petroleum‐derived vacuum residues. In SEC, the toluene soluble/pentane insoluble fraction gave a peak for high mass material at about 67 000 u. Material excluded from the column porosity in this fraction and in NMP solubles eluted between 8 and 11 min, corresponding to polystyrene masses between 200 000 and several million u. A column with a larger pore size distribution was calibrated using polystyrene and polymethylmethacrylate standards with detection by a light‐scattering evaporative analyser. The largest polystyrene standard (15.4 million u) eluted at 13.4 min, similar to that of the earliest eluting amber‐derived material in the NMP solubles fraction. Results from probe‐MS and pyrolysis‐GC/MS have been used to confirm the similarity of chemical structures of the three solubility fractions. Broadly, low mass ions appear to correspond to the various monomeric units of structures present in the amber, the higher mass ions to dimer units and the molecular ions to the different combinations of three or more monomeric units. The main monomer groups have been identified in detail, showing a situation very different from that of coal‐derived materials, where the sizes of aromatic ring systems increase with molecular size. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An atmospheric pressure ion lens to improve electrospray ionization at low solution flow‐rates
Authors: Schneider Bradley B. , Douglas D. J. , Chen David D. Y. 
Published: August 2002

AbstractThe performance of a reduced flow‐rate electrospray ion source is substantially improved by the addition of an atmospheric pressure ion lens near the tip of the tapered sprayer. The magnitude and stability of ion signals, detected within a mass spectrometer, are significantly improved. In addition, the ion lens decreased the dependence of the ion signals on the sprayer position. These benefits are believed to be due to an improvement in the shape of the equipotential lines near the tip of the electrospray ion source. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Structural analysis of styrene oxide/haemoglobin adducts by mass spectrometry: identification of suitable biomarkers for human exposure evaluation
Authors: Basile Adriana , Ferranti Pasquale , Mamone Gianfranco , Manco Immacolata , Pocsfalvi Gabriella , Malorni Antonio , Acampora Antonio , Sannolo Nicola 
Published: August 2002

AbstractThe structural characterisation of adducts formed by the in vitro reaction of haemoglobin (Hb) with styrene oxide (SO), the most reactive metabolite of the industrial reagent styrene, was obtained by liquid chromatography/electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (LC/ES‐MS) analysis of modified tryptic peptides of human Hb chains. The reactive sites of human Hb towards SO were identified through characterisation of alkylated tryptic peptides by matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionisation with tandem mass spectrometry (MALDI‐MS/MS). A procedure was set up based on this characterisation, allowing Hb modification to be assessed by monitoring SO/Hb adducts using HPLC with selected ion recording (SIR) mass spectrometry. By this methodology it was also possible to compare advantages and disadvantages of presently available strategies for the measurement of Hb adducts with SO. The results obtained could most plausibly lead to the optimisation of molecular dosimetry of SO adducts, and the analytical procedure described herein could be applied to the biological monitoring of styrene exposure in the workplace. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Viruses and autoimmunity: an affair but not a marriage contract
Authors: Rouse Barry T. , Deshpande Shilpa 
Published: August 2002

AbstractViruses are considered as causative agents and contributors to lesion expression in autoimmune disease, notions best supported by studies in animal model systems. This review discusses relationships between virus infection and autoimmunity focusing on mechanisms by which they could induce autoreactivity. The popular idea of molecular mimicry is viewed skeptically with the reviewers taking the viewpoint that viruses contribute to autoimmunity mainly by inducing several nonspecific inflammatory events that together are sufficient to trigger autoreactivity in genetically receptive hosts. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Learning relational rule from examples that are neither positive nor negative
Authors: Ichise Ryutaro , Numao Masayuki 
Published: August 2002

AbstractOver the past decade, several inductive logic programming (ILP) systems have been developed. However, the normal ILP system does not have enough power to induce logic programs in some domains. Therefore, various new ILP systems, such as nonmonotonic ILP, that apply new learning tasks, have been proposed. In the present paper, a new learning task, called relational learning from nondichotomizable examples, is proposed for relational domains. The scheme of this task is similar to that of normal ILP, with the exception of the training examples. Normally, conventional ILP uses positive and negative examples in the training process. However, the examples of the proposed learning task are not strictly positive or negative: the training examples have a continuous scale. This new learning task is defined and a new method for learning this task is proposed. A new ILP system, SYNGIP (for SYNthesized system using Genetic programming and Inductive logic Programming), is developed based on this method and the performance of SYNGIP is compared experimentally to that of the conventional ILP method for the task of human feeling acquisition. © 2001 Scripta Technica, Syst Comp Jpn, 32(14): 34–40, 2001
An efficient document retrieval method using n‐gram indexing
Authors: Ogawa Yasushi , Matsuda Toru 
Published: August 2002

AbstractIn Japanese, the border between words is not explicitly indicated. Consequently, n‐gram (a tuple of n characters) indexing is usually applied to document retrieval. Retrieval based on the n‐gram indexing is performed for long retrieval words as follows. After dividing the long retrieval word into n‐grams, two‐stage processing is applied, consisting of determination of the retrieval candidate document containing the divided n‐gram, and noise elimination in the candidate document by matching the position of the n‐gram. This paper proposes two methods to speed up the above retrieval processing. One selects the combination that minimizes the processing cost for noise elimination from the n‐gram extracted from the long retrieval word. The other applies additionally an n‐gram other than the one minimizing the cost, extracted from the retrieval word, to the determination of the candidate document, which improves efficiency in narrowing the range of the candidate documents. An evaluation experiment was performed, using 4 years of newspaper articles, and the effectiveness of the proposed methods was demonstrated. © 2002 Scripta Technica, Syst Comp Jpn, 33(2): 54–63, 2002
Shape measurement of columnar objects with specular surfaces by slit ray projection method
Authors: Baba Mitsuru , Konishi Tadataka , Handa Hisashi 
Published: August 2002

AbstractIn this paper, a method for measuring the shape of a columnar object with specular surfaces by a slit ray projection method is proposed. Although the slit ray projection method is effective for measuring the shape of an object having diffuse reflective characteristics, applying the method to an object with specular surfaces has hitherto been difficult. In this paper, a triangulation equation for a columnar object with specular surfaces is derived and used as the basis of a method for measuring the shape of an object having specular surfaces using applicable slit rays. The basic principle is that the angle of incidence of a slit ray reflected from the measured object into an image sensor is restricted specifically by the special design of the optical system. In addition to the theoretical study of the proposed principle, a system for measuring the shape of a columnar specular object and a diffuse object was created and its effectiveness was verified. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Comp Jpn, 33(4): 50–60, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/scj.1119
Motion picture coding based on region segmentation using genetic algorithm
Authors: Takagi Koh'ichi , Koike Atsushi , Matsumoto Shuichi , Yamamoto Hideo 
Published: August 2002

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to improve the coding efficiency of motion pictures by proposing a region segmentation method using the genetic algorithm (GA). In motion‐compensated predictive coding, region segmentation and motion estimation are closely related to each other, and they should be performed so that the coding complexity and S/N are optimized. Their determination can be reformulated as the optimization problem of assigning the motion vectors to each block of the image. Consequently, this paper examines the data type and the processing method of GA so that the optimal region segmentation is obtained. A computer simulation using a test image was performed as an experiment, and the effectiveness of the proposed method was demonstrated. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Comp Jpn, 33(5): 41–50, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/scj.1126