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Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	60%

Selected Abstracts

Seismic activity triggered by the 1999 Izmit earthquake and its implications for the assessment of future seismic risk

GEOPHYSICAL JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL, Issue 1 2001
Ali Pinar
Summary A serious question has remained as to the location of the western end of the main rupture zone associated with the 1999 Izmit, Turkey, earthquake. A clear answer to this question is extremely important for the assessment of future seismic risk in the eastern Marmara Sea region, Turkey. In this paper we show an effective approach to answering this important question, unifying different kinds of information such as seismic activity, focal mechanism solutions and stress changes caused by the main shock into a clear image. We first point out that the major moment release is 1.6 × 1020 N m and covered the area between 29.7°E and 30.5°E and we then claim that the enhanced seismic activity after the main shock in the eastern Marmara Sea region should be regarded as activity triggered by the increase of stress, rather than as aftershock activity along the ruptured zone. We propose three fault segments with an average stress increase on each in the western extension of the main-shock rupture zone as potential sites for future large earthquakes, namely (i) the 50 km long Yalova,Hersek segment (0.45 MPa), (ii) the NW,SE-trending right-lateral strike-slip fault known as the Princes Islands segment (0.18 MPa), and (iii) the Çinarcik,Yalova segment (0.09 MPa) characterized by normal faulting, which was subject to rupture in 1963. [source]

Advanced Light Microscopy and Portuguese Folklore

IMAGING & MICROSCOPY (ELECTRONIC), Issue 3 2006
ELMI Meeting 2006 at Ofir, Portugal
Those who may have asked themselves 6 years ago, when the European Light Microscopy Initiative (ELMI, http://cci.sahlgrenska.gu.se/elmi/) meeting took place for the first time, if this really is what the European community of microscopists was waiting for, have a clear answer by now: Yes!, the ELMI conference has developed into an excellent platform for communication between scientists, specialists and manufacturers. [source]

Gender-associated differences in the psychosocial and developmental outcome in patients affected with the bladder exstrophy-epispadias complex

BJU INTERNATIONAL, Issue 2 2006
CELINE LEE
OBJECTIVE To identify problems in the long-term psychosocial and developmental outcome specific to patients with the bladder exstrophy-epispadias complex (BEEC), using a self-developed semi-structured questionnaire, as there are various techniques of reconstruction to repair BEEC but to date neither patients nor surgeons have a clear answer about which type gives the most acceptable long-term results. PATIENTS AND METHODS Increasingly many patients with BEEC reach adulthood and wish to have sexual relationships and families. To date, no studies have used disease-specific psychological instruments to measure the psychosocial status of patients with BEEC. Thus we contacted 208 patients with BEEC, and 122 were enrolled, covering the complete spectrum of the BEEC. The data assessed included the surgical reconstruction, subjective assessment of continence, developmental milestones, school performance and career, overall satisfaction in life, disease-specific fears and partnership experiences in patients aged >18 years. We compared affected females and males to assess gender-associated differences in quality of life. RESULTS Affected females had more close friendships, fewer disadvantages in relation to healthy female peers and more partnerships than the males. Family planning seemed to be less of a problem in affected females. There were no gender differences in the adjustments within school and professional career, which was very good in general. CONCLUSION Future studies are needed to assess the disease-specific anxieties, considering gender-specific differences. [source]

Role of meta-analysis of clinical trials for Alzheimer's disease

DRUG DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH, Issue 3 2002
Jesús M. López Arrieta
Abstract Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a growing worldwide medical, social, and economic problem. In all countries, both prevalence and incidence of this disorder increase with age. The task of translating scientific clinical research into effective interventions for dementia has proved to be a difficult challenge. Data about the effects of therapeutic interventions come from several sources of evidence, ranging from studies with little potential for systematic bias and minimal random error, such as well-designed randomized controlled trials, through controlled but nonrandomized cohort and case-control studies, all the way to opinions based on laboratory evidence or theory. Although clinical trials are widespread in AD, there is increasing recognition that the results of studies do not necessarily apply to the type of patients that are seen by clinicians because of differences in patient characteristics, comorbidities, cotherapies, severity of disease, compliance, local circumstances, and patients preferences, which may differ sufficiently from those in the trial situation to attenuate or change the benefit-to-risk ratio. There are several methods to address those issues, like pragmatic trials and n-of-1 trials. When data from randomized clinical trials do not provide clear answers from sufficiently similar studies in the magnitude of effect sizes, lack of statistical significance, or identification of subgroups, systematic reviews and meta-analysis may help to provide a better summary of the data. A major difference between a traditional review and a systematic is the systematic nature in which studies are chosen and appraised. Traditional reviews are written by experts in the field who use differing and often subjective criteria to decide what studies to include and what weight to give them, and hence the conclusions are often very diverse, depending on the reviewer. Publication and selection bias is a major concern of traditional reviews. Systematic reviews and meta-analysis are being increasingly used in dementia, propelled by the Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group, to make decisions about treatment, management, and care and to guide future research. This narrative review describes the rationale for randomized clinical trials and systematic reviews in dementia, particularly AD. Drug Dev. Res. 56:401,411, 2002. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Neuroimaging of Language: Why Hasn't a Clearer Picture Emerged?

LINGUISTICS & LANGUAGE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 4 2009
Evelina Fedorenko
Two broad questions have driven dozens of studies on the neural basis of language published in the last several decades: (i) Are distinct cortical regions engaged in different aspects of language? (ii) Are regions engaged in language processing specific to the domain of language? Neuroimaging has not yet provided clear answers to either question. In this paper, we discuss one factor that is a likely contributor to the unclear state of affairs in the neurocognition of language, and that, in our opinion, has not received sufficient attention in the recent literature. In particular, fMRI studies of language have relied, almost exclusively, on group analyses, in which data from multiple individuals are co-registered to and analyzed in a common space. We argue that this approach can obscure functional specificity because of the anatomical variability across individual brains, and we advocate the use of an alternative approach , the functional localization approach , that circumvents this problem. [source]