bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Reliability of Venous Diameter in the Diagnosis of Subclinical Varicocele
Authors: Çaşkurlu Turhan , Taşçı Ali İhsan , Resim Sefa , Şahinkanat Tayfun , Ekerbiçer Hasan 
Published: July 2003

<i>Objective:</i> The diameters of the veins in the pampiniform plexus have been used to diagnose subclinical varicocele. But there are many cutoff points and some controversies about the diagnosis. These cause difficulty in the evaluation of the results of epidemiological and clinical studies. Our aim is to establish the reliability of vein diameters in the pampiniform plexus in the diagnosis of subclinical varicocele. <i>Methods:</i> Physical examination, scrotal gray scale ultrasonography (SU) and color Doppler ultrasonography (CDU) were performed to assess varicocele in 100 infertile patients without clinical varicocele (group I), 100 infertile patients with clinical left varicocele (group II), and 50 fertile men without clinical varicocele (group III) as a control group. The diameter of the veins in the pampiniform plexus was measured with SU. According to various cutoff points of venous diameter and CDU criteria, the diagnosis of varicocele was made. The highest mean venous diameters were calculated with and without varicocele in men whose diagnoses had been made with CDU. The results were correlated with each other and the control group. <i>Results:</i> According to venous diameter cutoff points, the varicocele ratio did not correlate with the CDU results (p < 0.05) except for the left side of patients with clinical left-sided varicocele. The highest mean diameters of the veins in group III (control group) did not show a significant difference to the other groups (p > 0.05) except for the left side of group II patients. We did not find an exact relation between the highest venous diameter in the men who have and those who do not have subclinical varicocele with CDU. The highest mean diameter was 2.17 ± 0.34 (SD) mm for men who have subclinical varicocele and 2.00 ± 0.31 mm for men who do not have subclinical varicocele by CDU (p < 0.05). <i>Conclusion:</i> Our results indicate that venous diameters should not be used as diagnostic criteria for subclinical varicocele. Only the evaluation of venous diameter in varicocele should be used to document and quantify pathology, but it should not be used to establish the diagnosis.
Assessment of the Efficacy of Viagra<sup>®</sup> (Sildenafil Citrate) Using the Erectile Dysfunction Inventory of Treatment Satisfaction (Edits)
Authors: Sadeghi-Nejad Hossein , Lim Hong , Long Karen , Gilhooly Patricia 
Published: July 2003

Treatment satisfaction is a predictor of long-term compliance in patients with erectile dysfunction (ED). We assessed patient satisfaction with and efficacy of Viagra<sup>®</sup> (sildenafil citrate) using the Erectile Dysfunction Inventory of Treatment Satisfaction (EDITS) and 3 global efficacy questions. Twenty-nine men with ED who had completed a prior study of MUSE<sup>®</sup> (alprostadil) versus Caverject<sup>®</sup> (alprostadil) took a 50-mg dose of Viagra 1 h preceding intercourse. Efficacy and patient satisfaction with Viagra were high. Satisfaction as measured by EDITS was highly correlated to patients’ final ED treatment choice. This correlation could make EDITS useful in identifying long-term patient satisfaction, and thus of considerable clinical benefit.
Assessing Adult Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Turkish Version of the Current Symptoms Scale
Authors: Aycicegi Ayse , Dinn Wayne M. , Harris Catherine L. 
Published: July 2003

We report normative data for a Turkish translation of the Current Symptoms Scale (CSS), a screening measure of adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The CSS yields 3 scores reflecting diagnostic criteria for: (1) ADHD, predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type; (2) ADHD, predominantly inattentive type, and (3) ADHD, combined type. For comparison purposes, we also present normative data from a community sample in the United States. Central tendency, variability, and correlation patterns among Turkish subjects (n = 181) were similar to patterns demonstrated by respondents in the United States (n = 114). Mann-Whitney U tests revealed that the Turkish and US groups did not differ significantly on the subscales assessing inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms. Both versions demonstrated acceptable levels of internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranged from 0.65 to 0.78 for the Turkish version, and from 0.63 to 0.75 for the English version). The Turkish version of the CSS demonstrated excellent test- retest reliability. The test-retest coefficient for the CSS (total score) was 0.82. The inattentive type subscale also showed good test-retest reliability, with r = 0.78. The test-retest coefficient for the hyperactive-impulsive type subscale was appreciably lower, with r = 0.68; albeit, in the acceptable range. Investigators have determined that many adults, initially diagnosed with ADHD as children, continue to demonstrate clinically significant symptoms. Since adult ADHD is associated with a number of comorbid psychiatric conditions and treatment of the underlying attentional, executive, and impulse control difficulties is associated with a reduction in comorbid psychiatric symptoms, the routine screening for adult ADHD in psychiatric and mental health settings may be warranted.
Accelerated Progression of Calcific Aortic Stenosis in Dialysis Patients
Authors: Perkovic Vlado , Hunt David , Griffin Sian V. , du Plessis Moira , Becker Gavin J. 
Published: July 2003

<i>Background:</i> Abnormalities of the aortic valve occur with increased frequency in patients with renal failure and may contribute to the observed excess cardiovascular mortality. Little data exist on the rate at which aortic stenosis progresses in this patient group. <i>Methods:</i> A retrospective case-control study was designed to compare the rate of progression of aortic stenosis in dialysis patients with that in sex-matched controls. Dialysis patients with aortic stenosis were identified by a search of the echocardiography database. Twenty-eight dialysis patients were compared to 56 sex-matched controls, all of whom had aortic stenosis on at least two echocardiograms 6 months apart. Changes in mean and peak transvalvular gradient as well as valve area were calculated from echocardiographic data and compared. <i>Results:</i> Aortic stenosis progressed more rapidly in the dialysis patients than in the controls when measured by change in valve area (–0.19 vs. –0.07 cm<sup>2</sup>/year; p < 0.001) and change in peak transvalvular gradient (6.5 vs. 3.9 mm Hg/ year; p = 0.04). There was also a trend towards more rapid progression of mean transvalvular gradient (4.9 vs. 2.5 mm Hg/year; p = 0.052). On multivariate linear regression analysis, only end-stage renal failure (p = 0.02) and baseline valve area (p = 0.04) predicted accelerated progression of aortic stenosis. <i>Conclusions:</i> Aortic stenosis progressed more rapidly in the presence of renal failure. The time frames for review and operation in dialysis patients should be shorter than for the general population.
The Vowel Systems of Quichua-Spanish Bilinguals
Authors: Guion Susan G. 
Published: July 2003

Abstract
This study investigates vowel productions of 20 Quichua-Spanish bilinguals, differing in age of Spanish acquisition, and 5 monolingual Spanish speakers. While the vowel systems of simultaneous, early, and some mid bilinguals all showed significant plasticity, there were important differences in the kind, as well as the extent, of this adaptability. Simultaneous bilinguals dffered from early bilinguals in that they were able to partition the vowel space in a more fine-grained way to accommodate the vowels of their two languages. Early and some mid bilinguals acquired Spanish vowels, whereas late bilinguals did not. It was also found that acquiring Spanish vowels could affect the production of native Quichua vowels. The Quichua vowels were produced higher by bilinguals who had acquired Spanish vowels than those who had not. It is proposed that this vowel reorganization serves to enhance the perceptual distinctiveness between the vowels of the combined first- and second-language system.
Analysis of English Nonsense Syllable Recognition in Noise
Authors: Benkí José R. 
Published: July 2003

AbstractEnglish nonsense consonant-vowel-consonant syllables were presented at four different signal-to-noise ratios for recognition. Information theory methods are used to analyze the response data according to segment type and phonological feature, and are consistent with previous studies showing that the consonantal contrast of voicing is more robust than place of articulation, word-initial consonants are more robust than word-final consonants, and that vowel height is more robust than vowel backing. Asymmetrical confusions are also analyzed, indicating a bias toward front vowels over back vowels. The results are interpreted as parts of phonetic explanations for synchronic and diachronic phonological patterns.
Transcending the Madhhab-in Practice: the Case of the Sudanese Shaykh Muhammad Majdhub (1795/6-1831
Authors: Hofheinz Albrecht 
Published: July 2003

Muhammad Majdhūb was one of many Muslims who in the nineteenth century argued against strict adherence to the established
madhhab
system and sought ways to overcome it. This case study, based on an examination of Majdhūb's writings and contemporary documents, analyses what this position meant in practice, how it was expressed, and what it signified in a given social context. The challenge to
madhhab
affiliation appears to have been more radical in theory than in practice. While dismissing
fiqh
rationality and basing himself on Prophetic Tradition and inspiration, Majdhūb's practical conclusions consistently - if implicitly - agree with the Shāfi ī school. In the context in which such views were propagated, however, we find interesting social and political factors that contributed to their attractiveness. Here, they served to transcend a politicised deadlock between proponents of different
madhhabs
while lending 'Prophetic' support to the local as opposed to the ruling Ottoman party.
Time in the Art of Ancient Egypt: From Ideological Concept to Visual Construct
Authors: Bochi Patricia 
Published: July 2003

AbstractThe pervasiveness and immutability of time forced the ancient Egyptians to deal with its impact on everyday life in various ways. Yet, so far most studies have focused on the written expression of the concern for time, thus overlooking other areas of cognition equally capable of accounting for the ancient Egyptians' attempt at addressing the issue. Thus, the present study focuses on the way in which the ancient Egyptians conceptualized and visually represented the phenomenon of time. After examining the image-making process, the study analyzes the socio-cultural implications of such visual approach within the context of ancient Egyptian society.
"For Every Time there is a Season: John Philoponus on Plato's and Aristotle's Conception of Time"
Authors: McGinnis Jon 
Published: July 2003

AbstractThe originality of John Philoponus' temporal theory has been underestimated.The paper emphasizes Philoponus' creativity, especially in his reconciliation of Plato's and Aristotle's temporal theories (or at least one possible interpretation of Aristotle's account of time). To this end, the paper sketches both Plato's (and later Neoplatonic interpretations of Plato) and suggests an interpretation of Aristotle's accounts of time, which is at odds with the Platonic and Neoplatonic view of time. It next presents Philoponus' reconstruction of Aristotle's account along Platonic lines and concludes with the relevance of these ancient theories to contemporary temporal discussions.
Appraising Behaviour During Male-male Interaction in the Japanese Horned Beetle Trypoxylus Dichotomus Septentrionalis (Kono)
Authors: Hongo Yoshihito 
Published: July 2003

AbstractDetailed contest behaviour of the Japanese horned beetle, Trypoxylus dichotomus septentrionalis, was examined in the field. Male-male interactions have three sequences, and in these sequences four behavioural stages were recognized. After two males encountered (Stage 1), they always faced and shoved each other with their horns (Stage 2: 'Shoving'). Then, if the horn length or body size difference between the contestants was large, one male began to retreat and was chased by the other male, and the interactions terminated (Stage 4A: 'Chasing'). If the difference was small, the interactions proceeded to the escalated fighting stage (Stage 3: 'Pry'), in which two males put their horns under their opponents and push and try to flip them up each other. The interactions, which proceeded to Stage 3, have two ways of termination. If the body size difference was large, one male was flipped up by the other male, and the interactions was terminated quickly (Stage 4B). If the difference was small, the interactions was not terminated so quickly and continued until one male began to retreat, proceeding to Stage 4A. It is suggested that males with shorter horns relative to the opponents avoid the escalated fighting stage, 'Pry', after perceiving the horn length difference during 'Shoving', which would be an appraising behaviour. Thus, 'Shoving' is the most important stage among all the interaction processes in that the highest proportion of judgement is made here. The great allometric variation of horn length would presently function more greatly for enhancing the efficiency of mutual appraisal than that in actual fighting.
Grooming Interactions Among the Chimpanzees of the Budongo Forest, Uganda: Tests of Five Explanatory Models
Authors: Whiten Andrew , Arnold Kate 
Published: July 2003

AbstractPatterns of allogrooming among the Sonso community of chimpanzees of the Budongo Forest, Uganda, were examined and found to closely resemble those at other study sites. Strong affiliative bonds among males were reflected in high levels of grooming compared with other sex combinations. Adult males groomed, and received grooming most often from, other adult males and also adolescent females which were the only females with regular oestrous cycles during the study. Males had a wider diversity of grooming partners than females and groomed more equitably. However, males concentrated the majority of their effort on a very small number of partners compared with other sites. Grooming reciprocity was found among all age/sex combinations with the exception of adult male-female dyads once immediate reciprocation in the form of synchronous mutual grooming was removed from the analysis. Since grooming among males is thought to play a major role in servicing relationships and agonistic coalitions that can improve dominance status, competition for high-ranking grooming partners was predicted to influence the distribution of grooming among males. Grooming was indeed directed up the male hierarchy and closely ranked males groomed each other more often than those that were distantly ranked. However, when only adult males were considered, rank had little effect on grooming distributions. High rank appeared to influence access to females, but did not attract more female grooming partners. Grooming distributions in this average-sized community did not fit a number of alternative priority of access models which assume competition for high-ranking grooming partners that Watts (2000b) found to have some explanatory value in one very large community of chimpanzees, but not in a smaller, more representative one. Although rank is highly likely to influence coalition partner choice, whether such relationships depend upon strategic grooming partner choices in wild chimpanzees is presently unclear.
Use of Real-time FTIR to Characterize Kinetics of Amine Catalysts and to Develop New Grades for Various Polyurethane Applications, Including Low Emission Catalysts
Authors: Chaffanjon P. , Grisgby R. A. , Rister E. L. , Zimmerman R. L. 
Published: July 2003

The use of in situ Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) to follow PU reaction kinetics has been studied using a heated probe matching the PU material temperature. The results obtained show that, although not giving access to concentration of formed chemical bonds, the technique is a unique tool to assess subtle differences in catalysts behavior during actual PU formation, going beyond the currently used but restrictive characterization of catalysts in terms of gelling, blowing or trimerization grades. Examples of the use of the technique for the development of new amine catalysts are given for flexible and rigid foams. For flexible foams, it is shown that FTIR characterizes the gel potency in good agreement with the behavior of known gel catalyst molecules and is therefore a good tool to develop new ones. Results comparing gel strength and foam emission data show that several experimental grades have potential to be brought on the JEFFCAT® Catalyst range. They also confirmed the good performance of commercial low emission grades such as JEFFCAT® ZF-10 as blow catalyst and JEFFCAT® ZR-50, DPA and Z-130 as gel catalysts. For rigid foams, it is shown that FTIR provides good insight into the extent of trimer formation and is therefore the technique of choice to optimize catalyst blends for best fire performance and processing.
Effective Use of Compatibilizers to Achieve Resin Stability with Hydrocarbon Blowing Agents
Authors: Lyon James T. , Riley Robert E. 
Published: July 2003

The increasing use of hydrocarbon blowing agents brings with it additional problems for resin producers. First and foremost are the flammable hazard and VOC restrictions. However, resin incompatibility is another issue that is not as obvious. It is difficult to obtain a homogeneous resin mixture because dissimilar polarities of typical polyols and hydrocarbons lead to separation when not stirred sufficiently and/or continuously. This can result in separation of resin components in storage vessels. The purpose of this presentation is to offer a formulation technique that avoids resin separation. Resin stability can be achieved through the addition of additives described as compatibilizers. Suitable compatibilizers will be identified chemically and by trade name. Also, the optimum compatibilizer will be matched to the type of polyol used in the resin. The amount of compatibilizer added to the resin determines whether the resin is a stable emulsion or a micro-emulsion. Data will be presented identifying additive levels required to obtain both states, as well as the storage stability of typical resins. Physical property data will also be presented to demonstrate the effect the compatibilizer has on rigid foam properties.
Fire Behavior of Polyurethane Foams
Authors: Bastin B. , Paleja R. , Lefebvre J. 
Published: July 2003

Combustibility of polyurethane foam is an important industry issue. Many test methods are in place to characterize foam combustion, and legislation exists to ensure that the foam complies with specified standards. This paper provides a basic understanding of foam combustibility based on the British Standard BS5852 test method. Dynamic weight loss of foams made with two types of liquid flame retardants with and without melamine is used to provide this understanding. Thermogravimetric analysis and cone calorimeter have been used to support the discussions. In melamine free foams, our study has shown that the decomposition temperature of the liquid flame retardant is a key parameter, which governs the foam combustion. In the melamine containing foams, the overall combustion behavior is independent of the type of liquid flame retardant used. However, intrinsic differences do exist, and synergy is seen between melamine and liquid flame retardant under specific conditions. Applying this basic understanding and the actual combustion standards, foam producers can attain flexibility in designing cost effective foam formulations.
A Framework for Real-time Path Planning in Changing Environments
Authors: Leven Peter , Hutchinson Seth 
Published: July 2003

We present a new method for generating collision-free paths for robots operating in changing environments. Our approach is closely related to recent probabilistic roadmap approaches. These planners use preprocessing and query stages, and are aimed at planning many times in the same environment. In contrast, our preprocessing stage creates a representation of the configuration space that can be easily modified in real time to account for changes in the environment, thus facilitating real-time planning. As with previous approaches, we begin by constructing a graph that represents a roadmap in the configuration space, but we do not construct this graph for a specific workspace. Instead, we construct the graph for an obstacle-free workspace, and encode the mapping from workspace cells to nodes and arcs in the graph. When the environment changes, this mapping is used to make the appropriate modifications to the graph, and plans can be generated by searching the modified graph. In this paper, we first discuss the construction of the roadmap, including how random samples of the configuration space are generated using an importance sampling approach and how these samples are connected to form the roadmap. We then discuss the mapping from the workspace to the configuration space roadmap, explaining how the mapping is generated and how it can be encoded efficiently using compression schemes that exploit redundancy in the mapping. We then introduce quantitative robustness measures and show how these can be used to enhance the robustness of the roadmap to changes in the environment. Finally, we evaluate an implementation of our approach for serial-link manipulators with up to 20 joints.
Integrated Structural/Control Design of Micro-Positioner for Boring Bar Tool Insert
Authors: O’Neal George P. , Min Byung-Kwon , Pasek Zbigniew J. , Koren Yoram 
Published: July 2003

This paper presents a method to improve the performance of an electro-mechanical system by employing an integrated structural/control design methodology. In their previous work, the authors have introduced an intelligent boring bar, utilizing a micropositioner (composed of a piezoelectric actuator and photosensitive detectors) to actively control a cutting insert. The purpose of the micro-positioner was to improve precision of boring process by isolating the boring tool from tool vibrations and compensating tool position for geometric errors. The controller for the micro-positioner was designed only after the mechanical design was finalized. As a result, the controller performance was acceptable, but overall performance of the system was limited by its mechanical structure. This paper introduces a new approach of concurrent design of the mechanical structure and the controller to enhance the performance of the micro-positioner. With the proposed method, both mechanical and control design variables are determined simultaneously in a single optimization problem. The objective and constraint equations quantify system performance, stability, actuator saturation, and life expectancy as explicit functions of the design variables. The proposed integrated methodology both simplifies the design process of the prototype boring tool and enhances its performance over the previous design, as shown by simulation results.