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PubMed1988

Mathematical and statistical analysis of circadian rhythms.

The mathematical and statistical analysis of biological time series is complex and often involves specialised techniques. In this article we review several of these techniques, placing particular emphasis on the usefulness, assumptions and kind of data that they require. Because classical methods of time series analysis often require long spans of data that are not frequently available in biological studies, particularly in clinical circumstances, several alternative techniques are described. Where possible, emphasis is placed upon simple rather than esoteric mathematical descriptions of data. Also covered are problems of interpretation that might arise as a result of the mathematical analysis.

Circadian Rhythm↗
PubMed2004

An integrated review of the literature on demand feedings for preterm infants.

In the past 50 years, only 7 studies evaluating demand feedings in preterm infants have been published. The studies employed a variety of research methods including nonexperimental, quasi-experimental, and experimental designs. The earliest demand feeding studies are difficult to interpret due to inadequate sample sizes and incomplete descriptions of methodology. Trials in the 1980s and early 1990s were better described; however, they suffered from designs that produced findings that likely were strongly related to unit, nurse, or infant-specific interactions with the treatment, making it unlikely that findings could be replicated in other settings. The most recent studies are better conceived and described. Overall, the pattern of findings across the past 50 years indicates that preterm infants who were fed on demand showed some clinical improvement when compared to those infants offered other feeding patterns. Demand-fed infants exhibited more hunger cues and had improved behavior state organization, shorter duration of hospitalization, and gained weight at the same rate or faster than infants not fed on demand. Although each of the studies reviewed had some methodologic weaknesses, the consistency of findings across differing researchers, settings, empirical indicators, and years supports the cautious contention that demand feeding might prove to be the feeding approach of choice for most healthy preterm infants. Further studies in this area are warranted to add to current knowledge regarding the safety and efficacy of feeding various preterm infant populations. Research to address subpopulation differences (i.e., infants with congenital heart disease or orofacial lesions) in timing, method, and approaches to preterm infant feeding care is also needed.

Feeding Methods↗
PubMed2003

Mechanism of cationic surfactant adsorption at the solid-aqueous interface.

Until recently, the rapid time scales associated with the formation of an adsorbed surfactant layer at the solid-aqueous interface has prevented accurate investigation of adsorption kinetics. This has led to the mechanism of surfactant adsorption being inferred from thermodynamic data. These explanations have been further hampered by a poor knowledge of the equilibrium adsorbed surfactant morphology, with the structure often misinterpreted as simple monolayers or bilayers, rather than the discrete surface aggregates that are present in many surfactant-substrate systems. This review aims to link accepted equilibrium data with more recent kinetic and structural information in order to describe the adsorption process for ionic surfactants. Traditional equilibrium data, such as adsorption isotherms obtained from depletion approaches, and the most popular methods by which these data are interpreted are examined. This is followed by a description of the evidence for discrete aggregation on the substrate, and the morphology of these aggregates. Information gained using techniques such as atomic force microscopy, fluorescence quenching and neutron reflectivity is then reviewed. With this knowledge, the kinetic data obtained from relatively new techniques with high temporal resolution, such as ellipsometry and optical reflectometry, are examined. On this basis the likely mechanisms of adsorption are proposed.

Adsorption↗
PubMed1996

Conformation of sulfoquinovosyldiacylglycerol bound to a magnetically oriented membrane system.

The conformation of uniformly 13C-labeled sulfoquinovosyldiacylglycerol (SQDG) is studied in both membrane and solution environments using NMR spectroscopy. Analysis in a membrane-like environment is based on the measurement of dipolar interactions between 13C-13C and 1H-13C spin pairs and on the measurement of 13C chemical shift anisotropy offsets, which appear in magnetically oriented phospholipid-based membrane fragments. Potential energy maps for glycosidic torsions, phi, psi and theta 1, are calculated with a membrane interaction energy and are used in the interpretation of experimental data. The membrane-bound description for SQDG is most consistent with a set of low-energy conformations that extends the headgroup of SQDG away from the membrane surface. Analysis of the conformation of SQDG in CD3OD solution is based on measured 3JCH scalar couplings. The description of the solution conformation is modeled as a mixture of low-energy conformers predicted in the absence of a membrane interaction term and involves more extensive motional averaging than the model for SQDG embedded in the lipid matrix.

Antiviral Agents↗
PubMed2001

Diagnosis of canine hypothyroidism. Perspectives from a testing laboratory.

The most common sample received by our endocrine testing laboratory is submitted for the diagnosis of hypothyroidism in a dog. The current tests most frequently employed in our laboratory for thyroid evaluation in dogs are total T4, free T4 by dialysis, and canine TSH measurement. Each test has strengths and weaknesses and suffers from the possibility of both false positive and false negative results. This article provides a working description of each test and an approach to interpretation of results. Other tests that are less commonly used are also discussed. Examples of interpretation of test results in individual hypothyroid-suspect dogs are presented for illustration.

Animals↗
PubMed2003

The construction of the gendered patient: hospital staff's attitudes to female and male patients.

This article presents an analysis of some of the gendered attitudes to male and female patients as expressed by a variety of hospital staff, such as physicians, nurses and nursing aides of both sexes. Through unstructured interviews, we attempted to capture the staff's descriptions of female and male patients. Analysis and interpretation was based on an analytic framework of symbolic interaction where perception of patient as gendered was seen as negotiated through interactions between the health care worker and the patient. All staff, independent of their own gender, describe differences between female and male patients. Despite some differences between professional positions, all describe female patients as more demanding than male. Physicians describe elderly female patients in particular, as being demanding, while nursing staff say younger women are most demanding.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

What is a visual object?

The concept of an 'object' plays a central role in cognitive science, particularly in vision, reasoning and conceptual development - but it has rarely been given a concrete formal definition. Here I argue that visual objects cannot be defined according to simple physical properties but can instead be understood in terms of the hierarchical organization of visual scene interpretations. Within the tree describing such a hierarchical description, certain nodes make natural candidates as the 'joints' between objects, representing division points between parts of the image that cohere internally but do not perceptually group with one another. Thus each subtree hanging from such a node corresponds to a single perceived 'object'. This formal definition accords with several intuitions about the way objects behave.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Subject selection and characterization in clinical trials in children with autism.

The goal of psychopharmacologic research in autism is to provide guidance to clinicians and families on the risks and benefits of specific interventions. Careful subject selection and subject characterization in clinical trials are necessary for replication, to inform clinicians about the sample, and to elucidate the type of patients who might benefit from the treatment. At minimum, subject characterization includes demographic information, diagnosis (autism, Asperger's syndrome, or pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified), intellectual functioning, adaptive functioning, symptom severity, general behavioral profile, health status, pertinent clinical laboratory measures, height, weight, current treatments, and educational placements. Subject selection, sample size, and choice of the primary outcome measure are closely interrelated and linked to the study hypothesis. The magnitude of expected improvement on the primary outcome measure, which can be expressed by effect size, has direct implications for sample size. Large sample sizes are required to detect small effect sizes. To facilitate interpretation of study results, research reports should provide descriptive characteristics of the sample as well as the mean change and standard deviation on the primary outcome measure data to permit calculation of the effect size.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed2003

A new look at cardiac defense: attention or emotion?

The study of cardiac defense has a long tradition in psychological research both within the cognitive approach--linked to Pavlov, Sokolov, and Graham's work on sensory reflexes--and within the motivational one--linked to the work of Cannon and subsequent researchers on the concepts of activation and stress. These two approaches have been difficult to reconcile in the past. We summarize a series of studies on cardiac defense from a different perspective, which allows integration of the traditional approaches. This new perspective emphasizes a sequential process interpretation of the cardiac defense response. Results of descriptive and parametric studies, as well as those of studies examining the physiological and psychological mechanisms underlying the response, show a complex response pattern with both accelerative and decelerative components, with both sympathetic and parasympathetic influences, and with both attentional and emotional significance. The implications of this new look at cardiac defense are discussed in relation to defensive reactions in natural settings, the brain mechanisms controlling such reactions, and their effects on health and illness.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Role utilization of nurses in public psychiatry.

This study examined the professional, work and organizational characteristics, and the actual and preferred work activities of nurses employed by one state mental health agency. Findings include neutral ratings by this older and experienced group of nurses in relation to job satisfaction, work autonomy, and organizational commitment regardless of educational background or work setting. Specific activities of the nurses varied appropriately based on education, but differences emerged among functions performed by nurses in inpatient and community settings. All nurses preferred to increase their direct care activities and significantly reduce their clerical activities. Factors related to the appropriate utilization of public sector psychiatric nurses are analyzed.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Clinical effectiveness in the post-anaesthesia care unit: how nursing knowledge contributes to achieving intended patient outcomes.

Clinical effectiveness in the post-anaesthesia care unit: how nursing knowledge contributes to achieving intended patient outcomes This paper reports part of an ongoing study on how nursing knowledge develops in practice and influences patient outcomes. The practice focus is post-anaesthesia nursing, an area which has been under-represented in nursing research. A qualitative approach was used to explore narrative data, collected by in-depth interviews, with 32 experienced post-anaesthesia nurses. Data analysis and interpretation were informed by a phenomenological perspective consistent with a research focus on individual experiences. Interpretation of the narratives gave rise to a description of knowledge development which occurred as nurses gained experience, drew on the available knowledge base, and used knowledge in practice. This led to the identification and description of 'referential' and 'effective' types of knowledge. Referential knowledge comprises the variety of external knowledge sources available to inform practice. When referential knowledge was incorporated into the personal knowledge of the individual nurse in everyday practice, it was transformed into effective knowledge which was used by nurses to achieve desired patient outcomes. The study findings indicate that nurses used effective knowledge as evidence for decision making and interventions in everyday practice. The key finding of the study is that effective nursing knowledge requires practice for its development.

Anesthesia↗
PubMed2001

Recovery from moderate aphasia in the first year poststroke: effect of type of therapy.

OBJECTIVES: (1) To determine whether 2 model-based remediation programs affect writing performance in unselected subjects with moderate aphasia and whether there is consequent improvement in everyday life, and (2) to interpret the potential changes observed by recourse to a theoretical model. DESIGN: Consecutive sample, multiple baseline, within subject crossover study. SETTING: Ambulatory care units. PARTICIPANTS: Eight subjects with moderate aphasia from 6 to 12 months postonset. INTERVENTION: A standardized test for reading and writing skills was given at the beginning and the end of each therapy program and 1 month after therapy stopped. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Functional outcome measures were the Communicative Abilities in Daily Living (CADL) test and subtests from standardized aphasia assessment. RESULTS: After the 2 programs, there was improved writing performance, which was maintained after therapy stopped. Patterns of improvement corresponded to each of the 2 programs. Learning transfer was observed on the CADL test and functional writing, but gains on oral language were limited. Only 1 program was effective for 6 of the 8 patients. CONCLUSION: Specific rehabilitation programs aid recovery from aphasic symptoms from 6 to 12 months postonset. Individual response is linked to type of treatment. The interpretation is linked to a model-based description of aphasic symptoms and mechanisms of functional recovery.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed2005

Computer simulations of protein functions: searching for the molecular origin of the replication fidelity of DNA polymerases.

The use of computers to simulate the functions of complex biological macromolecules is essential to achieve a microscopic description of biological processes and to model and interpret experimental data. Here we apply theoretical computational approaches to investigate the fidelity of T7 DNA polymerase, divided into discrete steps that include contributions from substrate binding, pK(a) shifts, and rate constants for the PO bond-breaking and bond-making processes. We begin by defining the discrimination between right and wrong nucleotides in terms of the free energy landscape for the dNMP incorporation reaction. We then use the linear response approximation and the empirical valence bond methods to obtain converging results for the contribution of the binding and chemical steps to the overall fidelity. These approaches are successful in reproducing general trends in the observed polymerase incorporation fidelity. The calculations demonstrate the potential for further integration of theoretical and experimental studies to analyze high- and low-fidelity DNA polymerases.

Base Pairing↗
PubMed1998

Enhancing the flexibility and adaptability of the DARC structural representation for computer-aided drug design.

Noticeable progress has been achieved in the determination of dynamic topochromatic variables for the structural representation of compounds and their situation in a given population. These independent structural variables can be further combined into more complex variables. Their contributions to the evolution of an associated property can therefore be evaluated with certainty. The risk of having correlated variables is avoided while the structural description remains exhaustive. In order to enhance the interpretative ability of the QSAR model, one or several physicochemical properties can be taken with these structural parameters as explanatory variables. Typically, partition coefficients, 3-D and quantum mechanical data are used for this purpose. The structural aspects not taken into account by the physicochemical parameters are reflected in the remaining topochromatic variables. The use of these new concepts is presented in a study of carbazole mutagenicity. The model explains 99% of the total variance with one external property and four additional topochromatic variables. The modulation of the heat of formation of an intermediate by two topochromatic variables suggests a much more precise interpretation than a simple combination of the usual external variables.

Animals↗
PubMed1991

A new species and an annotated world list of the sucking louse genus Neohaematopinus (Anoplura: Polyplacidae).

A new species of sucking louse, Neohaematopinus sundasciuri, collected from the tree squirrel, Sundasciurus juvencus, is described from Palawan Island, Philippines. An updated world list of the genus Neohaematopinus is presented; this documents descriptive citations, known hosts, and geographical distributions with interpretive annotations for each of the 32 species now included in the genus. The geographical distributions of Neohaematopinus sciuri and N. sciurinus are discussed.

Animals↗
PubMed1996

Plasma fatty acid changes and increased lipid peroxidation in patients with adult respiratory distress syndrome.

OBJECTIVE: There is a strong evidence that adult patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are under severe oxidative stress, which leads to molecular damage. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, our objective was to sequentially monitor changes, in intensive care unit (ICU) patients, characteristic of the oxidative loss of plasma unsaturated fatty acids and formation of the highly specific oxidation product of linoleic acid, 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal. DESIGN: Prospective, nonintervention, descriptive study. Limited statistics were applied to facilitate interpretation of the data. SETTING: ICU of a postgraduate teaching hospital. PATIENTS: Eighteen critically ill patients with an established diagnosis of ARDS requiring high FIO2 administered by mechanical ventilation were compared with ten normal, healthy controls and ten patients pre- and postcardiopulmonary bypass surgery at risk for developing ARDS. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Sixty percent of the patients with ARDS included in this study survived. Major changes in the plasma concentrations of fatty acids occurred in all patients during their stay in the ICU. Percentage decreases in plasma linoleic acid concentrations were accompanied by increases in plasma oleic and palmitoleic acid concentrations. Circulating linoleic acid concentrations were significantly (p = .0001) lower in patients with ARDS than in the two control groups. The patients with ARDS who did not survive had lower (p = .0056) plasma oleic acid values than normal healthy controls and patients at risk for ARDs as a consequence of undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass surgery. Changes in palmitoleic acid, however, did not reach significance within the different groups studied. Patients with ARDS showed higher plasma concentrations of 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (0.433 +/- 0.048 vs. 0.523 +/- 0.069 nmol/mL plasma for survivors and nonsurvivors, respectively) when compared with normal healthy controls (0.205 +/- 0.03 nmol/mL, p = 0.0001) and cardiopulmonary bypass patients at risk for developing ARDS (0.279 +/- 0.027 nmol/mL, p = .034 prebypass). CONCLUSIONS: During intensive care treatment, patients with ARDS decrease their percentage plasma concentrations of total plasma linoleic acid, but increase their percentage concentrations of oleic and palmitoleic acids. As plasma linoleic acid concentrations decreased, there was usually an increase in plasma 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal values, one of its specific peroxidation products, suggestive of severe oxidative stress leading to molecular damage to lipids.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1980

Short-term tissue culture observations of experimental primary and transplanted nervous system tumors.

Tumors of the central and peripheral nervous system were induced in BD-IX rats and transplanted serially. Both primary and transplanted tumors in different generations were cytologically analyzed, using primary explants in vitro. Four hundred and thirty single tumors were examined in vitro over th period 1969 to 1977, using the following methods: conventional aniline staining, special silver impregnation, supravital observation of cells by phase contrast microscopy, locomotion studies with time-lapse cinematography, and ultrastructural analysis from transmission and scanning electron microscopy. Cells grown in vitro were subdivided into the following groups, according to their morphology: (1) Apolar cells: Round cells only observed in rare tumors of the nasal cavity and sporadically in transplanted neurinomas; they are thought to represent cells from the reticular variant of neurinoma in the latter. (2) Bipolar cells occurred in two forms: As bipolar fibroblasts and as slender bipolar cells observed in explants of malignant neurinomas. The latter cells grow in parallel arrangements; their tentative interpretation as Schwann cells is consistent with their description in human neurilemomas. (3) Semipolar cells with one clear-cut edge and a broad ruffled membrane opposite. They are described as fibroblasts in the course of locomotion. (4) Multipolar cells, observed in several forms in primary and transplanted gliomas exclusively. Variants with long processes were seen in the first passages of intracerebrally transplanted tumors only; in later generations, all cells had short branching processes and little cytoplasm. Conclusions concerning the cytologic derivation of experimental tumors are discussed.

Animals↗