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Major Shortcomings (major + shortcoming)
Selected AbstractsReview of pulp sensibility tests.INTERNATIONAL ENDODONTIC JOURNAL, Issue 9 2010Part I: general information, thermal tests Jafarzadeh H, Abbott PV. Review of pulp sensibility tests. Part ,: general information and thermal tests. International Endodontic Journal, 43, 738,762, 2010. Abstract A major, and essential, part of the diagnostic process for pulp disease is the use of pulp sensibility tests. When diagnosing pulp pain, these tests can be used to reproduce the symptoms reported by the patient to diagnose the diseased tooth as well as the disease state. However, a major shortcoming with these tests is that they only indirectly provide an indication of the state of the pulp by measuring a neural response rather than the vascular supply, so both false positive and false negative results can occur. The relevant literature on pulp sensibility tests in the context of endodontics up to January 2009 was reviewed using PubMed and MEDLINE database searches. This search identified papers published between November 1964 and January 2009 in all languages. Thermal tests have been used as an integral part of dental examinations. Two types of thermal tests are available, one uses a cold stimulus and the other uses a hot stimulus, and each has various methods of delivery. If these tests are used properly, injury to the pulp is highly unlikely. A review of the literature regarding the rationale, indications, limitations, and interpretation of thermal tests, the value of these diagnostic tests, as well as a discussion of the important points about each of these tests is presented. [source] Improving pharmacokinetic properties of adrenocorticotropin by site-specific lipid modificationJOURNAL OF PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCES, Issue 9 2003Lei Wan Abstract Although many peptides are potentially good therapeutic agents for treating various diseases, only a few have been developed for limited applications. A major shortcoming is that peptides have generally very short serum half lives. In the present study, we use adrenocorticotropin (ACTH) as a model and explore the potential of combining site-specific amino acid substitution and lipid modification to increase the circulating half-lives of peptides. Phe39 of ACTH was substituted by Cys, which has a free sulfhydryl group that can react specifically with iodoacetamide derivatives of lipophilic groups. The biological activities of lipophilized ACTH(F39C)s were higher than native ACTH. Lipophilized ACTH(F39C)s bound more tightly to human serum albumin and cell membranes in vitro and had longer serum half-lives in vivo than native ACTH. These results indicate that the pharmacokinetic properties of peptides can be improved by site-specific substitution with cysteine residues and subsequent conjugation with lipophilic moieties. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. and the American Pharmacists Association J Pharm Sci 92:1882,1892, 2003 [source] ,SPRACHKULTUR' IN LAY AND ACADEMIC DISCOURSE IN MODERN GERMANY1GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS, Issue 4 2008Winifred V. Davies ABSTRACT The term ,Sprachkultur' is common in German-language academic and lay discourse, but what exactly does it mean? Is it used in the same way by trained and lay linguists? This article defines the term and traces its history, before going on to compare and contrast its use by both groups. Data taken from lay-linguistic works are analysed and two recurring motifs (i. the link between morality and linguistic usage and ii. accuracy/clarity) are discussed to see what light they throw on conceptions of language and language use. The concluding section sums up the similarities and differences between lay and academic linguists. The latter tend to concentrate on ,Sprachgebrauchskultur' whereas the former are prepared to criticise the language system as well. The stress laid by lay linguists on accuracy and the link between morality and linguistic choices reflects a ,telementational' view of language which has major shortcomings, and appears to be rooted in a world-view that equates diversity with cultural and ideological fragmentation rather than seeing it as enriching. However, the study of pronouncements by trained linguists shows that their work, too, reflects ideological assumptions about the nature of standard and other varieties of German. [source] Genealogical analyses in open populations: the case of three Arab-derived Spanish horse breedsJOURNAL OF ANIMAL BREEDING AND GENETICS, Issue 5 2009I. Cervantes Summary This research assesses the genetic composition of three Arab-derived Spanish horse breeds as an example to highlight the major shortcomings related to genealogical analyses in open populations and to propose approaches useful to deal with this task. The studbooks of three Spanish Arab (SA)-derived horse breeds, Spanish Anglo-Arab (dAA), Hispano-Arab (dHA) and Spanish Sport Horse (dSSH) and those of their parental breeds SA, Spanish Purebred (SPB) and Thoroughbred (TB), totalling 211 754 individuals, were available. The genealogies of the dAA, dHA and dSSH were analysed not only using the corresponding studbook (breed exclusive dataset) but also including the genealogies of the founders from parental breeds (completed dataset). Coancestry analyses revealed that the present SA-derived populations share more genes with the Arab than with the other parental breeds. Effective population size was computed by accounting for migration rates to obtain an equivalent closed-population effective size (eqNe) of 39.2 for the dAA, 56.3 for dHA and 114.1 for dSSH. The essayed methodologies were useful for characterising populations involving migration. The consequences of the management of the analysed breeds are discussed. The results emphasize the need to include the complete genealogies of the individuals to attain reliable genealogical parameters. [source] Using soft computing techniques for improving foot trajectories in walking machinesJOURNAL OF FIELD ROBOTICS (FORMERLY JOURNAL OF ROBOTIC SYSTEMS), Issue 7 2001Elena Garcia Walking machines have been investigated during the last 40 years and some basic techniques of this field are already well known. However, some aspects still need to be optimized. For instance, speed seems to be one of the major shortcomings of legged robots; thus, improving leg speed has been chosen as the main aim of this work. Although some algorithms for optimizing trajectory control of robot manipulators already exist, we propose a more computationally efficient method that employs fuzzy set theory to involve real dynamic effects over leg motion instead of an inaccurate mathematical model. In this article, we improve leg speed by automatically tuning the acceleration of legs. For this purpose, we define fuzzy rules based on experiments and we find the optimal acceleration for every given trajectory. A simple fuzzy inference system is used to compute the required acceleration. It is based on five rules using three linguistic variables. Final results show that foot acceleration tuning for straight trajectory generation is a suitable method for achieving accurate, smooth and fast foot movements. Also it is shown that under some conditions average leg speed can be increased up to 100% using the control methods herein proposed. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source] Building a reusable test collection for question answeringJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 7 2006Jimmy Lin In contrast to traditional information retrieval systems, which return ranked lists of documents that users must manually browse through, a question answering system attempts to directly answer natural language questions posed by the user. Although such systems possess language-processing capabilities, they still rely on traditional document retrieval techniques to generate an initial candidate set of documents. In this article, the authors argue that document retrieval for question answering represents a task different from retrieving documents in response to more general retrospective information needs. Thus, to guide future system development, specialized question answering test collections must be constructed. They show that the current evaluation resources have major shortcomings; to remedy the situation, they have manually created a small, reusable question answering test collection for research purposes. In this article they describe their methodology for building this test collection and discuss issues they encountered regarding the notion of "answer correctness." [source] | ||||||||||