bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Seizure Frequency and Cortisol and Dehydroepiandrosterone Sulfate (DHEAS) Levels in Women with Epilepsy Receiving Antiepileptic Drug Treatment
Authors: Andrea Galimberti Carlo , Magri Flavia , Copello Francesco , Arbasino Carla , Cravello Luca , Casu Massimo , Patrone Vittoriana , Murialdo Giovanni 
Published: March 2005

Summary:  Purpose: Hormonal changes occur in epilepsy because of seizures themselves and of antiepileptic drug (AED) effects on steroid production, binding, and metabolism. Conversely, steroids may influence neuron activity and excitability by acting as neuroactive steroids. This cross‐sectional observational study aimed to evaluating cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) levels in female epilepsy patients with different disease severity, as assessed by a seizure frequency score (SFS). Methods: Morning serum levels of cortisol and DHEAS were assayed in 113 consecutive women, aged 16 to 47 years, with varied epilepsy syndromes, receiving mono‐ or polytherapy with enzyme‐inducing and/or noninducing antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). Hormonal data were correlated with clinical parameters (age, body mass index, epilepsy syndrome, disease onset and duration, SFS, AED therapy, and AED serum levels) and compared with those of 30 age‐matched healthy women. Results: In epilepsy patients, cortisol levels and cortisol‐to‐DHEAS ratios (C/Dr) were significantly higher, whereas DHEAS levels were significantly lower than those in controls. Patients with more frequent seizures showed higher cortisol and C/Dr values and lower DHEAS levels than did those with rarer or absent seizures during the previous 6 months. SFS mainly explained the increase of cortisol levels and C/Dr in patients with more active disease. Changes in DHEAS levels correlated with SFS and epilepsy syndrome, as well as with AED treatments and ages. Conclusions: Women with more frequent seizures had alterations of their adrenal steroids characterized by an increase of cortisol and a decrease of DHEAS levels. Such hormonal changes might be relevant in seizure control and in patient health.
Increased thyroidal fat and goitrous hypothyroidism induced by interferon‐γ
Authors: Kimura Hiroaki , Kimura Miho , Westra William H. , Rose Noel R. , Caturegli Patrizio 
Published: March 2005

SummaryHashimoto's thyroiditis is associated with a diffuse lymphocytic infiltration of the stroma and a production of several cytokines, such as interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ). We previously reported that transgenic mice expressing IFN‐γ under the control of the thyroglobulin promoter develop primary hypothyroidism. In order to determine the long‐term changes induced by IFN‐γ in the thyroid gland, we analysed cross‐sectionally 202 mice (96 transgenic mice and 106 controls) of 0–650 days of age. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that, after adjusting for age and sex, thyr‐IFN‐γ transgenic mice were 14% (3 g) smaller (P < 0.0001) and had a 5‐ to 6‐fold bigger thyroid (P < 0.0001) than wild‐type littermates. Transgenic thyroids showed striking histopathological changes in follicles, thyrocytes and stroma. Follicles were enlarged, irregular and were lined by thickened, granular and oxyphilic thyrocytes. The stroma contained a moderate and diffuse mononuclear infiltrate – mainly composed of macrophages – and, interestingly, a clear increase in the content of fat. These findings indicate that, in addition to hypothyroidism, chronic exposure of the thyroid to IFN‐γ leads also to macrophage infiltration and subsequent adipocyte expansion, suggesting a link between inflammation and fat accumulation.
Embryonic reversions and lineage infidelities in tumour cells: genome‐based models and role of genetic instability
Authors: Bignold Leon P. 
Published: March 2005

SummaryReversions to ‘embryonic precursor’‐type cells and infidelities of tumour cell lineage (including metaplasias) have been recognized as aspects of various tumour types since the 19th century. Since then, evidence of these phenomena has been obtained from numerous clinical, biochemical, immunological and molecular biological studies. In particular, microarray studies have suggested that ‘aberrant’ expressions of relevant genes are common. An unexplained aspect of the results of these studies is that, in many tumour types, the embryonic reversion or lineage infidelity only occurs in a proportion of cases. As a parallel development during the molecular biological investigation of tumours over the last several decades, genetic instability has been found much more marked, at least in some preparations of tumour cells, than that identified by means of previous karyotypic investigations of tumours. This study reviews examples of embryonic reversion and lineage infidelity phenomena, which have derived from the various lines of investigation of cancer over the last 150 or so years. Four categories of circumstances of the occurrence of embryonic reversions or lineage infidelities have been identified – (i) as part of the defining phenotype of the tumour, and hence being presumably integral to the tumour type, (ii) presentab initioin only some cases of the tumour type, and presumably being regularly associated with, but incidental to, the essential features of the tumour type, (iii) occurring later in the course of the disease and thus being possibly a manifestation ofin vivogenetic instability and ‘tumour progression’ and (iv) arising probably by genetic instability, during the processes, especially cell culture, associated withex vivoinvestigations. Genomic models are described which might account for the origin of these phenomena in each of these circumstances.
Newly diagnosed childhood diabetes: a psychosocial transition for parents?
Authors: Lowes Lesley , Gregory John W. , Lyne Patricia 
Published: March 2005

Aim.  This paper reports a study to gain a new theoretical understanding of parental grief responses and the process of adaptation to a diagnosis of childhood diabetes.Background.  A diagnosis of childhood (type 1) diabetes is an anxious and distressing event for the whole family. Little is known about the experience of parents of newly diagnosed children as they cope with and adapt to their new situation. Parkes’ Theory of Psychosocial Transition proposes that life‐change events, or ‘psychosocial transitions’, require people to undertake a major revision of their assumptions about the world. The relevance of this theory to adjusting to a diagnosis of childhood diabetes has not been explored.Method.  Forty audio taped in‐depth interviews were undertaken with 38 parents of 20 newly‐diagnosed children. The data were subsequently examined using the framework of the Theory of Psychosocial Transition.Findings.  Before diagnosis, most parents associated their child's symptoms with normal childhood illnesses. The unexpectedness and speed of the diagnosis left all parents ill‐prepared to deal with the situation. Their world suddenly changed, leaving them insecure and uncertain about the future. Diabetes intruded emotionally and practically upon all of their lives. Parents successfully adjusted and adapted their lives and rebuilt a new model of the world to accommodate their child's diabetes. However, this dynamic process has no guaranteed endpoint for parents.Conclusions.  A diagnosis of childhood diabetes leads to a psychosocial transition for parents. The concept of transition provides a logical explanation of parents’ responses to loss, and allows increased understanding of the grieving and adaptation processes experienced by parents of children diagnosed with a chronic condition such as diabetes. This knowledge should help health care professionals to assist parents in the period of transition.
Unpacking the concept of patient satisfaction: a feminist analysis
Authors: Turris Sheila A. 
Published: March 2005

Aim.  The aim of this paper is to present a feminist critique of the concept of patient satisfaction.Background.  Fiscal restraint, health care restructuring, shifting demographics, biomedical technological advances, and a significant shortage of health care professionals are stretching health care systems across North America to the breaking point. A simultaneous focus on consumerism and health service accountability is placing additional pressure on the system. The concept of patient satisfaction, with roots in the consumer movement of the 1960s, has both practical and political relevance in the current health care system and is commonly used to guide research related to consumer experiences of health care. Because the quality of health care encounters may lead to treatment‐seeking delays, patient satisfaction research may be an effective vehicle for addressing this public health issue. However, there is wide agreement that patient satisfaction is an under‐theorized concept. Using current conceptualizations of patient satisfaction, we end up all too often producing a checklist approach to ‘achieving’ patient satisfaction, rather than developing an understanding of the larger issues underlying individual experiences of health care. We focus on the symptoms rather than the problems.Discussion.  Without further theoretical refinement, the results of research into patient satisfaction are of limited use. To push forward theoretical development we might apply a variety of theoretical lenses to the analysis of both the concept and the results of patient satisfaction research. Feminism, in particular, offers a perspective that may provoke further refinement of patient satisfaction as a concept.Conclusions.  Without a deeper understanding of the values and beliefs (or the worldview) that informs our approaches to researching patient satisfaction, researchers will be reacting to the most obvious indicators and failing to address the underlying issues related to individual experiences of health care.
Giving people a voice: reflections on conducting interviews with participants experiencing communication impairment
Authors: Philpin Susan M. , Jordan Sue E. , Warring Joanne 
Published: March 2005

Aim.  The aim of this paper is to describe the various strategies employed to mitigate communication impairments and to argue that illness experiences may be captured through methods other than audio‐tape recordings of spoken words.Background.  This paper explores issues surrounding the collection of interview data from participants experiencing communication impairments. It derives from a qualitative interview study, which enquired into experiences of living with a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy. This is an artificial route created directly into the stomach for long‐term delivery of nutrition to people who are unable to take nutrition via the normal route. However, in many cases the physical impairments that led to their requirement for this form of feeding also made speech, and hence interviewing, very difficult.Discussion.  Capturing illness experiences from participants with impaired communication requires a reconsideration of both practical strategies and broader methodological issues. In addition to the adaptation of data generation strategies a re‐examination of the complexities inherent in the meaning of ‘patient experience’ is required. This paper explores the utility of verbal and other interactional input from carers to explore further dimensions of this experience.Conclusion.  Qualitative research that seeks to capture the meanings of illness from the patient's perspective needs to be adapted to embrace different modes of communicating the illness experience.
The impact of international placements on nurses’ personal and professional lives: literature review
Authors: Button Lori , Green Barbara , Tengnah Cassam , Johansson Inez , Baker Christine 
Published: March 2005

Aim.  This paper presents a critical review of research literature on the impact of international placements on the lives and practice of nurses.Background.  Health care institutions are progressively more aware of the need to respond to diverse patient populations and cultivate leaders to enrich the nursing profession, both locally and globally. One response has been to establish international exchange programmes for nursing students to give them experience of different cultures and health care systems.Methods.  A search of the literature from 1980 to 2003 using electronic databases was undertaken using the databases CINAHL, ERIC, British Nursing Index, Web of Science, the BIDS Social Science Citation Index and Medline. The keywords used were ‘international exchange experience’, ‘international studies’, ‘international education’, ‘international placement(s)’, ‘exchange programme(s)’, combined with ‘nurses/nursing’, combined with ‘evaluation’, ‘practice’, ‘education’ and/or ‘policy’. The papers retrieved used both qualitative and quantitative approaches and were scrutinized for recurring themes.Findings.  Nurses reported significant changes in their personal development, perspectives on nursing practice and critical appraisal of health care systems. They also indicated an increased appreciation and sensitivity towards cultural issues and cross‐cultural care. Moreover, differences in placement programmes, such as duration, preparation and debriefing were found to have affected the reported overall international placement experience. However, the primary effects of international placements were identified as personal development and transcultural adaptation.Conclusion.  Students should be exposed to a variety of nursing experiences within the host country. This would give them a broad spectrum for comparisons between cultures, nursing practice and health care delivery in those cultures. Therefore, educational institutions are strongly encouraged to provide opportunities for students to participate in nursing care and education in another country.
Part‐Time Mate Guarding Affects Paternity in Male Reed Buntings (Emberiza schoeniclus)
Authors: Marthinsen Gunnhild , Kleven Oddmund , Brenna Erik , Lifjeld Jan T. 
Published: March 2005

AbstractMale mate guarding by close following has been reported in many socially monogamous bird species and is generally believed to function as a paternity guard. Many aspects of the dynamics and effectiveness of this behavior are still however poorly understood. Here, we describe the temporal variation in mate guarding behavior in male reed buntings (Emberiza schoeniclus) with a particular focus on how males allocate their mating effort between mate guarding and extrapair mating in a context of intense sperm competition. In our highly synchronous study population most males have to balance the simultaneous and mutually exclusive demands of mate guarding and seeking extrapair copulations (EPCs). We found that males frequently switched between guarding their mates and performing intrusions to neighboring territories. Both activities seemed to have significant fitness payoffs, as male mate guarding effort had a positive effect on paternity, and a large fraction of extrapair fertilizations occurred during the days when the sire guarded its own female. The reed bunting is thus an example of how discontinuous or part‐time mate guarding can still be effective in securing paternity. Female reed buntings were not particularly active in initiating EPCs as they never were observed performing extraterritorial forays. We argue that the absence of female‐initiated EPCs is a prerequisite for males to trade mate guarding against seeking EPCs. Otherwise, if females circumvent male mate guarding by timing their EPCs to periods of male absence, males should guard their mates almost continuously or rely on alternative paternity guards.
Stress intensity factors for cracks emanating from two‐dimensional semicircular notches using the composition of SIF weight functions
Authors: TEH L. S. , BRENNAN F. P. 
Published: March 2005

ABSTRACTThis paper presents stress intensity factor (SIF) solutions for edge cracks emanating from semicircular notches using the composition of SIF weight functions. The method isolates and combines the geometrical influences defined by constitutive SIF weight functions to yield SIFs for semicircular notches in finite thickness bodies. Finite element analysis was employed to obtain the required stress distributions and to generate reference constitutive SIFs. Problems encountered with curve fitting high gradient stress distributions were addressed and a robust mathematical solution for these was formulated. The new SIF solutions were verified by comparison with published solutions showing a high degree of accuracy and reliability. The composition model was demonstrated to allow rapid generation of SIFs for mode I cracks in complex geometries where the relevant simple constitutive solutions are available. These new solutions expressed as SIF weight functions allow interpolation between the geometrical parameters for which they are valid and also to include the effect of complex stress distributions such as those due to residual stresses.
Effects of non‐proportional loading paths on the orientation of fatigue crack path
Authors: REIS L. , LI B. , LEITE M. , DE FREITAS M. 
Published: March 2005

ABSTRACTFatigue crack path prediction and crack arrest are very important for structural safety. In real engineering structures, there are many factors influencing the fatigue crack paths, such as the material type (microstructure), structural geometry and loading path, etc. In this paper, both experimental and numerical methods are applied to study the effects of loading path on crack orientations. Experiments were conducted on a biaxial testing machine, using specimens made of two steels: 42CrMo4 and CK45 (equivalent to AISI 1045), with six different biaxial loading paths. Fractographical analyses of the plane of the stage I crack propagation were carried out and the crack orientations were measured using optical microscopy. The multiaxial fatigue models, such as the critical plane models and also the energy‐based critical plane models, were applied for predicting the orientation of the critical plane. Comparisons of the predicted orientation of the damage plane with the experimental observations show that the shear‐based multiaxial fatigue models provide good predictions for stage I crack growth for the ductile materials studied in this paper.
Factors influencing transit fatigue of seamless pipes
Authors: KUNERT H. G. , OTEGUI J. L. 
Published: March 2005

ABSTRACTFull‐scale fatigue tests simulating real pipe stock conditions in ships were carried out in order to reproduce failures of seamless pipes due to fatigue crack growth during shipping. Simple mechanical analyses were then used to assess the factors that influence transit fatigue. As seen in several actual failures, fatigue cracks were found to propagate from both sides of the pipe wall. It is possible to have transit fatigue (TF) when piling up a few pipes for transportation, if there is previous plastic indentation. Susceptibility to TF was found to be independent of the nature of discontinuities in the surfaces of the pipes. Precautions to reduce the probability of TF in sea shipment include preventing plastic indentation of the pipes and storing stiffer pipes in the bottom part of the hold.
Structural integrity of pipelines: T‐stress by line‐spring
Authors: JAYADEVAN K. R. , THAULOW C. , ØSTBY E. , BERG E. , SKALLERUD B. , HOLTHE K. , NYHUS B. 
Published: March 2005

ABSTRACTThe elastic T‐stress is an important constraint parameter for characterizing elastic–plastic crack‐tip fields and in fracture assessment procedures. However, many of the methods reported in the literature for estimating T‐stress are not easily suited for surface‐cracked pipes because these are three‐dimensional in nature. Here, the line‐spring method is demonstrated to be an efficient and accurate tool for the constraint estimation in surface‐cracked pipes. Detailed three‐dimensional analyses are performed to verify the line‐spring results. Using the line‐spring method, the effects of different crack geometries and diameter‐to‐thickness ratio on stress‐intensity factor (SIF) and T‐stress in circumferentially surface‐cracked pipes are examined. Further, a compendium of normalised SIF and T‐stress values for surface‐cracked pipes in remote tension and bending, calculated from a total of 1000 analyses, is tabulated. Finally, the application of an ‘elastic–plastic’ T‐stress under large‐scale plasticity is explored.
Exponential slow crack growth of glass and advanced ceramics—dynamic fatigue
Authors: CHOI S. R. , NEMETH N. N. , GYEKENYESI J. P. 
Published: March 2005

ABSTRACTThe life prediction analysis based on an exponential crack‐velocity formulation was made and examined using a variety of experimental data on glass and advanced structural ceramics in constant stress‐rate (‘dynamic fatigue’) loading at ambient and elevated temperatures. The data fit to the relation of strength versus ln (stress rate) was very reasonable for most of the materials. The major limitation in the exponential crack‐velocity formulation, however, was that the inert strength of a material must be known a priori to evaluate the important SCG parameter, n, a significant drawback as compared with the conventional power‐law crack‐velocity formulation.
Puromycin‐based purification of rat brain capillary endothelial cell cultures. Effect on the expression of blood–brain barrier‐specific properties
Authors: Perrière N. , Demeuse PH. , Garcia E. , Regina A. , Debray M. , Andreux J.‐P. , Couvreur P. , Scherrmann J.‐M. , Temsamani J. , Couraud P.‐O. , Deli M. A. , Roux F. 
Published: March 2005

AbstractOne of the main difficulties with primary rat brain endothelial cell (RBEC) cultures is obtaining pure cultures. The variation in purity limits the achievement of in vitro models of the rat blood–brain barrier. As P‐glycoprotein expression is known to be much higher in RBECs than in any contaminating cells, we have tested the effect of five P‐glycoprotein substrates (vincristine, vinblastine, colchicine, puromycin and doxorubicin) on RBEC cultures, assuming that RBECs would resist the treatment with these toxic compounds whereas contaminating cells would not. Treatment with either 4 µg/mL puromycin for the first 2 days of culture or 3 µg/mL puromycin for the first 3 days showed the best results without causing toxicity to the cells. Transendothelial electrical resistance was significantly increased in cell monolayers treated with puromycin compared with untreated cell monolayers. When cocultured with astrocytes in the presence of cAMP, the puromycin‐treated RBEC monolayer showed a highly reduced permeability to sodium fluorescein (down to 0.75 × 10−6 cm/s) and a high electrical resistance (up to 500 Ω × cm2). In conclusion, this method of RBEC purification will allow the production of in vitro models of the rat blood–brain barrier for cellular and molecular biology studies as well as pharmacological investigations.