bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Numerical dissipation in time‐step integration algorithms for structural dynamic analysis
Authors: Fung T C 
Published: September 2003

AbstractTo damp out spurious high‐frequency responses, time‐step integration algorithms for structural dynamic analysis should have controllable numerical dissipation in the high‐frequency regime. The algorithms should also be unconditionally stable so that the time‐step size is governed by the accuracy requirement only. This paper reviews several recently developed frameworks that can be used to construct unconditionally stable dissipative time‐step integration algorithms. The continuous displacement (single‐field) formulations are considered here. The algorithmic parameters that can be used to control the numerical dissipation in time‐step integration algorithms are also discussed.
Integrated sensing of civil and innovative FRP structures
Authors: Mufti A A , Tennyson R C , Cheng J J R 
Published: September 2003

AbstractModern and innovative technologies, developed as part of ISIS Canada activities, are described. These technologies involve new building materials, comprising polymers and super‐strong fibres, and innovative sensors incorporating fibre optics. It is argued that the ISIS technologies will pave the way to innovation as well as for rehabilitating and rejuvenating Canada's ageing and fast‐crumbling infrastructure in a cost‐effective manner. This paper chronicles the latest developments of ISIS technologies.
Analysis and design of floating bridges
Authors: Watanabe Eiichi , Utsunomiya Tomoaki 
Published: September 2003

AbstractThe history of floating bridges can be dated back to 2000 BC. There are many types of floating bridges, depending on the conditions of the land and the types of barriers to cross. As compared with land‐based bridges, only limited information is available for floating bridges in many respects, such as past construction records, meteorological and durability conditions. In recent years it has been possible to design floating bridges more scientifically because of theoretical developments in the hydrodynamic interactions between fluid and floating bodies. This paper aims to overview the design and analysis of floating bridges following a recently published design manual by JSCE, and describes the recent development of their design with special emphasis on the use of steel.
New results for the analysis of linear systems with time‐invariant delays
Authors: Zhang Jianrong , Knospe Carl R. , Tsiotras Panagiotis 
Published: September 2003

AbstractThis paper presents a comparison system approach for the analysis of stability and ℋ︁∞performance of linear time‐invariant systems with unknown delays. The comparison system is developed by replacing the delay elements with certain parameter‐dependent Padé approximations. It is shown using the special properties of the Padé approximation to e−sthat the value sets of these approximations provide outer and inner coverings for that of each delay element and that the robust stability of the outer covering system is a sufficient condition for the stability of the original time delay system. The inner covering system, in turn, is used to provide an upper bound on the degree of conservatism of the delay margin established by the sufficient condition. This upper bound is dependent only upon the Padé approximation order and may be made arbitrarily small. In the single delay case, the delay margin can be calculated explicitly without incurring any additional conservatism. In the general case, this condition can be reduced with some (typically small) conservatism to finite‐dimensional LMIs. Finally, this approach is also extended to the analysis of ℋ︁∞performance for linear time‐delay systems with an exogenous disturbance. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Transfusion‐associated graft vs. host disease after donor‐specific leukocyte transfusion before kidney transplantation
Authors: van der Mast Barbara J , van den Dorpel Marinus A , Drabbels Jos JM , Claas Frans HJ , Weimar Willem 
Published: September 2003

Abstract:Transfusion‐associated graft vs. host disease (TA‐GVHD) is a well‐known but rare complication that follows infusion of histo‐incompatible lymphoid cells, often seen in individuals with impaired cellular immunity. However, we present here a case report of fatal TA‐GVHD in a ‘presumed’ immunocompetent patient after transfusion of a freshly isolated buffycoat from a relative as part of our protocol to prepare the patient for living‐related kidney transplantation. To confirm the diagnosis of TA‐GVHD, a polymerase chain reaction was used to detect donor cells in various affected tissues. Furthermore, the immune reactivity of the patient against donor and vice versa was tested on samples taken before transfusion using limiting dilution assays. Our patient received a transfusion with blood from a donor who was homozygous at the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I loci. Despite incompatibility for HLA class II, infused donor T lymphocytes were not rejected and became engrafted. The patient did not have cytotoxic T lymphocytes to reject the donor cells. DNA polymorphism studies on several organ biopsies confirmed the presence of infiltrating cells of donor origin. This report illustrates the possibility, in the general patient population, of developing TA‐GVHD from whole blood transfusion. In the case of pre‐transplant blood transfusion, the patient and donor have to be HLA‐typed and special care should be taken in the situation of donor homozygosity for HLA class I, even in the presence of HLA class II incompatibility. Protocols in which donor‐specific blood or bone marrow transfusions are given in an attempt to modulate the immune system should exclude these combinations.
Antiphospholipid syndrome in Asians: clinical manifestations, serological markers and outcome of the National University of Singapore/National University Hospital antiphospholipid cohort
Authors: Yoon Kam Hon , Fong Kok Yong , Sivalingam P. , Koh D. R. , Ng S. C. , Lim T. C. , Kassim S. 
Published: September 2003

AbstractBackground: There is a paucity of studies on antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) in Asian patients.Aim:  This is the first study in Singapore to describe the clinical features, serological markers and outcomes of one of the largest cohort of APS patients in South‐east Asia.Method: One hundred and forty‐six patients were studied.Results:  Within the study group, 89 were primary APS and 57 secondary APS. Age range: 16–84 years (mean Age: 50.1 years). Male : female ratio: 1 : 2.1. Racial distribution: Chinese, 69.2%; Malays, 18.5%; Indians, 11.7%. Systemic lupus erythematosus was the commonest disease associated in 48 patients (32.9%), while 17 (11.6%) had lupus‐like disease. Eighty‐two (56.2%) patients had arterial thrombosis, 37 (25.3%) patients had venous thrombosis, 14 (9.6%) had arterial and venous thrombosis while 17 (11.6%) had obstetric manifestations; 28.8% had thrombocytopenia. Clinical manifestations were diverse with neurological (49.3%), cardiac (40%), renal (23.6%) involvement. There were also several unusual presentations. Recurrent thrombosis occurred in 24.6%. Two had catastrophic APS and there were 12 deaths (9.6%). Antiphospholipid antibody testing included lupus anticoagulant, serum aCL IgG, IgM and IgA, anti‐β2 glycoprotein I (aβ2‐GPI) IgG, IgM, and IgA. The serological positivity rates of the various antiphospholipid antibodies were reported. aβ2‐GPI was positive in 67% of those tested, of which aβ2‐GPI IgA was the most common subtype. The presence of the aβ2‐GPI was associated with recurrent venous thrombosis.Conclusion:  The clinical manifestations of APS in Asian patients were diverse and multisystemic. Recurrent thrombosis rate was high with significant morbidity and mortality.
Screening for the RA‐associated shared epitope by flow cytometry: comparison of two methods with high resolution genotyping
Authors: Williamson A. A. , Varney M. , Tait B. , Wicks I. P. 
Published: September 2003

AbstractObjective: To assess flow cytometry‐based detection of the shared rheumatoid epitope (SE) as a potential screening test for high resolution genotyping in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.Methods:  Peripheral blood mononuclear cells or white blood cell preparations from 84 patients with RA (1987 ACR criteria) were stained with a monoclonal antibody to the SE and analyzed by flow cytometry. The need for additional staining of T‐cells was also assessed. Results with both approaches were compared to high resolution genotyping.Results:  The test had a positive predictive value of 100%, however, the negative predictive value was 77% due to poor staining in HLA‐DRB1*0101 or *0102 and HLA‐DRB1*1001 positive samples. Although there were no false positive tests with the simplified staining method, the negative predictive value was 61% with poor staining in HLA‐DRB1*0101 and failure to detect 4/22 samples with the high risk allele HLA‐DRB1*0401.Conclusions:  Without further modification, this approach cannot be recommended as a screening test for high resolution genotyping.
Antiphospholipid (Hughes) syndrome: a review with update
Authors: Malaviya Anand N. 
Published: September 2003

AbstractThis article reviews the evolution of the concept of Hughes syndrome starting with the discovery of beef heart extract‐reactive antibodies in sera of patients with syphilis, presence of such antibodies in some normal individuals who went on to develop systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), identification of the antigen as anionic phospholipids and some of the cofactors of the blood coagulation cascade, development of more refined techniques for detecting such antibodies and finally its implication in the causation of an acquired hypercoagulable state. The review then discusses the results of extensive international collaborative efforts of the major centres with interest and expertise in Hughes syndrome. It summarizes the recently enunciated classification criteria for this disease. The results and the implications of some of the recent seminal papers, especially on the frequency of different clinical manifestations in a large cohort of patients followed over long‐periods, and recommendations for long‐term high‐intensity anticoagulation for the optimum management of this disease, are also discussed.
Current management of cartilage defects: a review
Authors: Hui James Hoi Po , Marchie Anthony 
Published: September 2003

AbstractCartilage defects are a significant cause of morbidity and diminished quality of life, often leading to osteoarthritis (OA). Pain relief, restoration of joint function, and prevention or delay of the onset of OA are the aims of management, and initial treatment is usually conservative but temporary. Recent advances in understanding cartilage biology and the use of diagnostic imaging techniques have, however, allowed more aggressive approaches to cartilage repair which include: arthroscopic lavage with or without debridement; marrow stimulation procedures; implantation of autologous cells or tissue; and knee reconstruction. The role of these techniques in the clinician's effort to match treatment to a patient's needs and expectations is reviewed.
Outcome measures in rheumatoid arthritis
Authors: Malaviya Anand N. 
Published: September 2003

AbstractAssessing outcome in acute illness and chronic conditions with well defined end‐points, is simple. However, assessing outcome in slowly progressive chronic diseases with natural fluctuations in clinical course is a major challenge. Most chronic musculoskeletal diseases fall in the latter category with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as its prototype. To make matters worse, there are several aspects of musculoskeletal disease that need to be assessed over time. Degree of synovial inflammation, extent of structural damage, the degree of functional derangement, all need to be assessed separately at intervals. Any intervention must favourably affect each of these parameters to be meaningful to the patient. Having to deal with this problem in routine clinical practise as well as clinical research, rheumatologists have been pioneers in the development and use of clinical measures for outcome assessment in chronic fluctuating illnesses. This review summarizes the advances in the field of outcome assessment for RA with emphasis on decreased synovitis. For clinical research the use of Paulus statistics and ACR improvement criteria using a core‐set of parameters is recommended. For day‐to‐day assessment in the clinic DAS28 pooled‐index is recommended. Use of DAS28 is easy and quick, yet it gives internationally acceptable objective assessment of disease activity that compares well with ACR criteria. Availability of DAS28 Calculator v1.1‐beta on‐line at web site www.das‐score.nl or http://www.das‐score.nl/www.das‐score.nl/DAS28‐ne.xls. that performs all the calculations automatically makes it even easier to use in a busy clinic.
An introduction to pharmacoeconomic evaluation in rheumatology
Authors: Chuen LI Shu 
Published: September 2003

AbstractPharmacoeconomics is a relatively new healthcare discipline that borrows from several disciplines including health economics, decision analysis and evidence‐based medicine. By using various techniques such as cost‐minimization analysis (CMA), cost‐effectiveness analysis (CEA), cost‐utility analysis (CUA) and cost‐benefit analysis (CBA), pharmacoeconomic evaluation attempts to instil the element of cost‐effectiveness into the clinical decision‐making process beyond the traditional approach of considering efficacy and safety. The ultimate aim of pharmacoeconomics is to assist the decision makers in achieving allocation efficiency in the healthcare system. This is in response to the increased need for accountability during the age of cost‐containment in healthcare. The rapidly increasing healthcare costs and the ageing of populations in the developed countries have contributed significantly to the need for consideration of effectiveness in the evaluation of any healthcare treatment, particularly in pharmaceuticals. The growth of this field has proceeded rapidly in the past decade as health policy makers have faced a continuing series of decisions about funding new clinical therapies in an era of increasingly constrained healthcare resources. However, economics of healthcare includes not just an assessment of the cost of a new therapy, but an assessment of its overall economic and clinical impact. The discipline of pharmacoeconomics is developed to fulfil this role. To date, the most successful applications of the principles of pharmacoeconomics are in the areas of purchase decision (e.g. decision for formulary inclusion), subsidy decision (e.g. level of subsidy for pharmaceuticals), establishing practise standards (e.g. development of clinical practise guidelines) and assessment of technologies (e.g. medical procedures and technologies). The proper application of pharmacoeconomic evaluation in clinical medicine would necessitate a multidisciplinary approach requiring expertise and inputs from practitioners from clinical medicine, biostatistics and psychometrics, among others. A properly conducted pharmacoeconomic evaluation would provide valuable insights for clinicians to allow the choosing of options representing the best value‐for‐money without compromising the quality of care delivered. The application of pharmacoeconomic principles in the practise of rheumatology will be illustrated using the example of a hypothetical example of evaluating an application for formulary inclusion of a COX‐2 inhibitor.
Effects of white clover cultivar and companion grass on winter survival of seedlings in autumn‐sown swards
Authors: Elgersma A. , Schlepers H. 
Published: September 2003

AbstractThe aim was to study the effects of white clover cultivar and combinations with perennial ryegrass cultivars on seedling establishment in autumn‐sown swards and on winter survival of seedlings. Large‐leaved white clover cv. Alice and small‐leaved white clover cv. Gwenda, and an erect and a prostrate perennial ryegrass cultivar were sown in autumn in pure stands and as four binary grass‐clover mixtures. Mixtures of white clover cv. Huia and Aberherald with perennial ryegrass were also sown. Companion grasses had no significant impact on the establishment of white clover. The number of seedlings of white clover cv. Alice in mixtures (335 m−2) was higher than cv. Gwenda (183 m−2) and pure swards had similar white clover population densities as mixed swards. White clover cv. Huia tended to have more seedlings than Aberherald (355 and 205 m−2 respectively). No stolons were produced prior to a severe winter, because of the late sowing date. Winter survival of clover seedlings was 0·56 in mixtures and 0·69 in pure stands, irrespective of white clover or companion grass cultivar. Stolon development of white clover in autumn is often considered essential for overwintering survival and spring growth. In this study, there was considerable survival of the non‐stoloniferous tap‐rooted seedlings of all four clover cultivars despite a severe winter.
How do severity and frequency of grazing affect sward characteristics and the choices of sheep during the grazing season?
Authors: Garcia F. , Carrère P. , Soussana J. F. , Baumont R. 
Published: September 2003

AbstractThe effect of grazing frequency and severity on sward characteristics and preferences by sheep was investigated from April to September. Two levels of grazing severity were imposed by varying the numbers of ewes grazing 200 m2 plots for 24 h: four (S, severe) or two (L, lax) ewes. Grazing frequency was either 1 d week−1 (F, frequent) or 1 d every 2 weeks (I, infrequent). By combining frequency and severity, four treatments were obtained: SF, LF, SI and LI. The six binary combinations (SF/LF, SF/SI, SF/LI, LF/SI, LF/LI and SI/LI) were studied in preference tests.Treatments LF, SI and LI were characterized by a high sward surface height, biomass and amount of reproductive green tissues relative to treatment SF. Herbage quality was not different between the grazing treatments between April and July. In September, after a 6‐week period of regrowth, herbage quality was significantly higher for the SF treatment than the other treatments.The sheep preferred the swards grazed at a low frequency between April and July, and then changed their preference in favour of the sward with higher quality herbage (treatment SF). The relative abundance of green laminae and the relative digestibility of the swards helped to explain the preferences observed. For a low grazing pressure at the spatio‐temporal scale studied, sheep should graze swards at a relatively low frequency but at a high severity of grazing rather than the reverse.
Somaclonal breeding of reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea L.)
Authors: Gyulai G. , Mester Z. , Kiss J. , Szeman L. , Idnurm A. , Heszky L. 
Published: September 2003

AbstractTissue culture‐induced variants (somaclones) of reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea L.) were developed from callus cells of aseptic spikelet cultures. Molecular polymorphism of the populations of somaclones and spikelet‐donor plants as natural vegetative clones were compared by the application of polymerase chain reaction (PCR)‐based techniques of random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)‐, simple sequence repeat (SSR)‐, and inter‐simple sequence repeat (ISSR)‐PCR to genomic DNA samples. The genetic diversity was higher in the somaclones compared with vegetative clones as measured by the maximum genetic distance (MaxGD) which increased from 0·401 (vegetative clones) to 0·498 (somaclones). Along with this change, the minimum genetic distance (MinGD) decreased from 0·20 (control plants) to 0·06 (somaclones) which demonstrated that genetic changes occurred not only in a positive (dissimilarity, MaxGD), but also in a negative (similarity, MinGD) direction. Structural carbohydrate analyses were also performed on the leaves to compare the somaclones with the donor vegetative clones. The mean neutral‐detergent and acid‐detergent fibre concentrations of the leaves of the somaclones were about 0·20 lower than the donor vegetative clones suggesting that increases in the digestibility could be obtained from the somaclonal material.
CAG repeat length in the androgen receptor gene affects the risk of male infertility
Authors: Asatiani K. , von Eckardstein S. , Simoni M. , Gromoll J. , Nieschlag E. 
Published: September 2003

SummaryDuring recent years several studies have suggested that a slight increase in the number of CAG repeat sequences in exon 1 of the androgen receptor gene causes idiopathic oligozoospermia. We tested whether CAG repeats are more numerous in men with idiopathic infertility compared to those with known causes of oligozoospermia. CAG repeats were analysed in a consecutive sample of 217 infertile men covering a wide range of diagnoses and sperm counts. Data were compared with those of a control group of 131 normozoospermic men including 62 fathers. CAG repeats (x ± SD) did not differ between idiopathically (21.4 ± 2.9) and non‐idiopathically infertile men (21.6 ± 2.8) or normozoospermic men of unproven fertility (20.6 ± 3.0). Only fathers had significantly fewer repeats (19.4 ± 3.1; p < 0.001). Different from controls, no correlation between CAG repeats and any semen parameter existed in patients. Comparison of our and published studies showed that odds ratios for infertility in men with CAG repeat length in the upper quartile of the normal range increased when the controls were selected by proven fertility. We conclude that more numerous CAG repeats do not directly cause oligozoospermia and propose that men with longer CAG repeats might be more prone to develop infertility in response to any pathogen/epigenetic factors.
Deficit in cytochrome c oxidase activity induced in rat sperm mitochondria by in vivo exposure to zidovudine
Authors: Roger Dominique Leandri , Emmanuel Dulioust , Eric Benbrik , Pierre Jouannet , Marta De Almeida 
Published: September 2003

SummaryA decreased sperm motility has been reported in men treated with nucleoside analog reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI). Sperm motility is correlated with enzymatic activities of the sperm mitochondrial respiratory chain (MRC), which may be impaired by NRTI. We compared sperm and skeletal muscle MRC and citrate synthase (CS) activities, sperm adenosine triphosphate (ATP) content and sperm motility between rats exposed to zidovudine (AZT) for 10 weeks and controls. Decreased levels of CS‐normalized cytochrome c oxidase (COX, the MRC complex IV) activity were observed in the spermatozoa from AZT‐treated rats, with no significant decrease in ATP content or motility. In muscle absolute COX activity increased after exposure to AZT but CS‐normalized COX activity remained unchanged. These results suggest that exposure to NRTI can induce MRC dysfunction earlier in spermatozoa than in skeletal muscle.