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[Quantitative study on the effects of parathyroidectomy on the osseous remodelling and physiological migration of teeth in the rat].

Numerous hypotheses have been advanced to explain the factors determining the rhythm and direction of the physiological drift of the teeth, but the exact causes of the phenomena are still poorly understood. Since dental mesial drift and alveolar bone remodeling are closely associated, the influence of the parathyroid hormone, systemic factor of bone remodeling, was studied. A cessation of physiological mesial drift was observed in 8 days on parathyroidectomized rats without the use of any direct local action or compression of the periodontal ligament, on the resorbing alveolar side. Parathyroid hormone injection in rats parathyroidectomized for 4 days allowed the development of physiological drift in the same direction. Alveolar bone is therefore parathyroid hormone dependent : the remodeling seemed to determine the physiological drift whereas a local factor seemed to determine the direction.

Alveolar Process↗

Optical sensor interrogation with a blazed fiber Bragg grating and a charge-coupled device linear array.

We present what is to our knowledge the first comprehensive investigation of the use of blazed fiber Bragg gratings (BFBGs) to interrogate wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) in-fiber optical sensor arrays. We show that the light outcoupled from the core of these BFBGs is radiated with sufficient optical power that it may be detected with a low-cost charge-coupled device (CCD) array. We present thorough system performance analysis that shows sufficient spectral-spatial resolution to decode sensors with a WDM separation of 75 rhom, signal-to-noise ratio greater than 45-dB bandwidth of 70 nm, and drift of only 0.1 rhom. We show the system to be polarization-state insensitive, making the BFBG-CCD spectral analysis technique a practical, extremely low-cost, alternative to traditional tunable filter approaches.

Journal Article↗

Gravimetric method for the dynamic measurement of urine flow.

The rate of urine formation is a primary index of renal function, but no techniques are currently available to accurately measure low rates of urine flow on a continuous basis, such as are normally found in rats. We developed a gravimetric method for the dynamic measurement of urine flow in anesthetized rats. Catheters were inserted directly into the ureters close to the renal pelves, and a siphon was created to collect all of the urine formed as rapidly as it was produced. Urine flow was determined by measuring the weight of the urine using a direct-reading analytical balance interfaced to a computer. Basal urine flow was measured at 2-sec intervals for 30 to 60 min. The dynamic response of urine flow to a rapid decrease in arterial pressure produced by a bolus intravenous injection of acetylcholine (0.5 micrograms) was also measured. Intrinsic drift, evaporative losses, and the responsiveness of the system to several fixed pump flows in the low physiologic range were evaluated in vitro. The gravimetric method described was able to continuously measure basal urine flows that averaged 37.3 +/- 12.4 microliters/min. Error due to drift and evaporation was negligible, totaling less than 1% of the measured urine flow. Acetylcholine-induced declines in arterial pressure were followed within 8 sec by a decline in urine flow. These data demonstrate that this new gravimetric method provides a simple, inexpensive, dynamic measurement of urine flow in the microliter/min range.

Acetylcholine↗

A threefold genetic allee effect: population size affects cross-compatibility, inbreeding depression and drift load in the self-incompatible Ranunculus reptans.

A decline in population size can lead to the loss of allelic variation, increased inbreeding, and the accumulation of genetic load through drift. We estimated the fitness consequences of these processes in offspring of controlled within-population crosses from 13 populations of the self-incompatible, clonal plant Ranunculus reptans. We used allozyme allelic richness as a proxy for long-term population size, which was positively correlated with current population size. Crosses between plants of smaller populations were less likely to be compatible. Inbreeding load, assessed as the slope of the relationship between offspring performance and parental kinship coefficients, was not related to population size, suggesting that deleterious mutations had not been purged from small populations. Offspring from smaller populations were on average more inbred, so inbreeding depression in clonal fitness was higher in small populations. We estimated variation in drift load from the mean fitness of outbred offspring and found enhanced drift load affecting female fertility within small populations. We conclude that self-incompatibility systems do not necessarily prevent small populations from suffering from inbreeding depression and drift load and may exacerbate the challenge of finding suitable mates.

Alleles↗

An imaging system with calibrated color image acquisition for use in dermatology.

We propose a novel imaging system useful in dermatology, more precisely, for the follow-up of patients with an increased risk of skin cancer. The system consists of a Pentium PC equipped with an RGB frame grabber, a three-chip charge coupled devices (CCD) camera controlled by the serial port and equipped with a zoom lens and a halogen annular light source. Calibration of the imaging system provides a way to transform the acquired images, which are defined in an unknown color space, to a standard, well-defined color space called sRGB. sRGB has a known relation to the CIE1 XYZ and CIE L*a*b* colorimetric spaces. These CIE color spaces are based on the human vision, and they allow the computation of a color difference metric called CIE deltaE*ab, which is proportional to the color difference, as seen by a human observer. Several types of polynomial RGB to sRGB transforms will be tried, including some optimized in perceptually uniform color spaces. The use of a standard and well-defined color space also allows meaningful exchange of images, e.g., in teledermatology. The calibration procedure is based on 24 patches with known color properties, and it takes about 5 minutes to perform. It results in a number of settings called a profile that remains valid for tens of hours of operation. Such a profile is checked before acquiring images using just one color patch, and is adjusted on the fly to compensate for short-term drift in the response of the imaging system. Precision or reproducibility of subsequent color measurements is very good with (deltaE*ab) = 0.3 and deltaE*ab < 1.2. Accuracy compared with spectrophotometric measurements is fair with (deltaE*ab) = 6.2 and deltaE*ab < 13.3.

Calibration↗

Pursuit afternystagmus asymmetry in humans.

It is known that prolonged unidirectional motion of a large field induces a reflexive drift of the eyes in the same direction when the stimulus is turned off. The phenomenon, which is called optokinetic afternystagmus, is known to be stronger after upward than downward stimulus motion. It is now reported that a similar anisotropy exists in the afternystagmus associated with the smooth pursuit system (PAN). The speed of the PAN reflexive drift was found to be greater following upward tracking at all times tested during a 15 s interval when compared to the values following downward tracking. A psychophysical measure of illusory motion, presumed to be generated by suppression of PAN in order to maintain fixation upon a stationary target, also showed a significantly greater amplitude and duration for the upward direction. If the directional asymmetry is a property of a velocity integrator that is believed to generate the afternystagmus, then the results are compatible with the existence of a common integrator for both optokinetic and pursuit systems.

Eye Movements↗

The effects of genetic drift in experimental evolution.

Experimental evolution is characterized by exponential or logistic growth and periodic population bottlenecks. The fate of a rare beneficial mutation in these systems is influenced both by the bottleneck effect and by genetic drift. This paper explores the effects of incorporating genetic drift into models of fixation probability in populations with periodic bottlenecks. To model the inherent stochasticity during the growth phase in these populations, we assume a Poisson distribution of offspring. An analytical solution is developed to calculate the fixation probability and a computer simulation is used to verify the results. We find that the fixation rate of a favourable mutant is significantly lower when genetic drift is considered; fixation probability is reduced by over 25% for realistic experimental protocols. Our method is valid for both weak and strong selection; since very large selection coefficients have been reported in the experimental literature, this is an important improvement over previous results.

Biological Evolution↗

Extraction of the average and differential dynamical response in stimulus-locked experimental data.

In optical imaging experiments of primary visual cortex, visual stimuli evoke a complicated dynamics. Typically, any stimulus with sufficient contrast evokes a response. Much of the response is the same regardless of which stimulus is presented. For instance, when oriented drifting gratings are presented to the visual system, over 90% of the response is the same from orientation to orientation. Small differences may be seen, however, between the responses to different orientations. A problem in the analysis of optical measurements of the response to stimulus in cortical tissue is the distinction of the 'global' or 'non-specific' response from the 'differential' or 'stimulus-specific' response. This problem arises whenever the signal of interest is the difference in response to various stimuli and is evident in many kinds of uni- and multivariate data. To this end, we present enhancements to a frequency-based method that we previously introduced called the periodic stacking method. These enhancements allow us to separately estimate the dynamics of both the average signal across all stimuli (the 'global' response) and deviations from the average amongst the various stimuli (the 'stimulus-specific' response) evoked in response to a set of stimuli. We also discuss improvements in the signal-to-noise ratio, relative to standard trial averaging methods, that result from the data-adaptive smoothing in our method.

Animals↗

Flexor tenosynovectomy in the rheumatoid finger.

The usual operation fo stenosing flexor tenosynovitis is resection of the proximal pulley. In the rheumatoid hand this operation may not be proper because motion still may be limited by the thickened synovium more distally, and also because there is a greater chance for the production of ulnar drift later on if the proximal pulley system is obliterated. The operation we recommend for the finger with rheumatoid tenosynovitis is a tenosynovectomy, but with maintainence of the pulley system and resection of one slip of the superficialis in order to decompress the digital theca. We have performed this operation on 54 fingers with satisfactory results.

Arthritis, Rheumatoid↗

Inference from accelerated degradation and failure data based on Gaussian process models.

An important problem in reliability and survival analysis is that of modeling degradation together with any observed failures in a life test. Here, based on a continuous cumulative damage approach with a Gaussian process describing degradation, a general accelerated test model is presented in which failure times and degradation measures can be combined for inference about system lifetime. Some specific models when the drift of the Gaussian process depends on the acceleration variable are discussed in detail. Illustrative examples using simulated data as well as degradation data observed in carbon-film resistors are presented.

Carbon↗

Language boundaries and biological differentiation of Bougainville: multivariate analysis of variance.

Blood genetic and antropometric data on Melanesians from Bougainville, Papus New Guinea, are analyzed by random-effects analysis of variance to partition the observed variation into components for the individuals, village, and language group level. Both clinial and unpatterned group differences exist. The differences between language groups appear to be substantial, even when the results are corrected for clinal effects. The amounts of variation of each level correspond roughly to a similar analysis of heterozygosity in blood polymorphisms. Observed current migration figures suggest that language and village constitute a 2-fold hierarchical subdivision of the breeding system, and this analysis shows probable random drift effects between groups at both the village and language level. Both language and genetic constitution of these villages are the result of differentiation in place.

Analysis of Variance↗

Enhanced red cell sodium-hydrogen exchange in microvascular angina.

OBJECTIVES: Enhanced calcium content in arterial smooth muscle cells and altered reactivity of coronary vessels to alkalinization have been reported in angina pectoris due to impaired motility of coronary arteries. An altered function of sodium-hydrogen exchange, a ubiquitous membrane transport system that links proton efflux to calcium drifts, may mediate these phenomena. DESIGN AND SUBJECTS: Twenty patients with microvascular angina (stable effort angina, reversible perfusion defects during effort thallium 201 heart scintigraphy, and angiographically normal coronary arteries) were compared to 20 patients with stable effort angina due to coronary atherosclerosis and 20 healthy subjects. The sodium-hydrogen exchange was defined as the initial fraction of the amiloride-sensitive proton efflux from red cells with inhibited anion exchanger (pHi 6.00-6.05) into an Na(+)-containing medium (pHo 8.00-8.05). 12-0-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA, 600 nmol.l-1) and staurosporine (100 nmol.l-1) were used as phosphorylation modulators in vitro. RESULTS: The mean red blood cell Na+/H+ exchange was increased in patients with microvascular angina (451 +/- 37 vs 142 +/- 17 and 124 +/- 21 umol H+.1 cells-1.min-1, P < 0.01). TPA and staurosporine abolished differences between the groups. CONCLUSIONS: Microvascular angina is associated with enhanced Na+/H+ exchange in erythrocytes, probably due to more extensive phosphorylation of the membrane antiporter sites.

Cell Membrane↗

Effect of selection, mutation, and linkage on the equilibrium structure of selfing systems.

One-, two- and three-locus models of selection and mutation in completely self-fertilizing populations are examined. Equilibrium frequencies can be determined for these systems. Numerical analyses indicate that random genetic drift attributable to selfing plays a major role in determining equilibrium frequencies, even when strong directional selection is operating. Linkage has no effect on marginal gene frequencies or single-locus heterozygosity at equilibrium. The only model of those examined which leads to linkage disequilibrium is disruptive selection. In that model, selection reinforced the effect of selfing in favoring the homozygous genotypes.

Alleles↗

A pressure-recording guide wire for measurements of trans-stenotic gradients in arteries. In vitro validation.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: A 0.018'' guide wire with a pressure sensor near the tip has been developed for measuring arterial trans-stenotic pressure gradients. The pressure-recording properties of this system in vitro are evaluated. METHODS: Static and dynamic tests were performed with five guide wires. Dynamic tests (step response and recordings of phase and frequency response) were performed with a pressure generator connected to a recording system and a spectrum analyzer. RESULTS: Zero drift at 3 hours ranged from -1.9 to 2.2 mmHg/hour. Sensitivity drift ranged from 0.3% to 2.1%/hour. Hysteresis ranged from 0.2% to 4.3% (mean 2.4%). Bending in arcs of 180 degrees with diameters < 4 cm changed sensitivity and zero pressure recordings in all guide wires. Dynamic recordings showed a slight undershoot and no oscillation. CONCLUSION: Static errors exceeded those of external pressure transducers for fluid-filled catheters, indicating suboptimal recordings of absolute pressures. However, the small size, and the good dynamic properties, make this pressure wire a promising device for recording trans-stenotic pressure gradients in arteries.

Arteries↗

Numerical experiments on free-electron lasers without inversion.

The inversionless free-electron laser having a drift region consisting of two magnets is analyzed. Performing numerical simulations of electron motion inside wigglers and the drift region, we have shown that this system has a positive mean gain over the entire energy distribution of the electron beam. We study the influence of emittance and the spread of electron energies on the gain.

Journal Article↗

Compensation of magnetic disturbances improves inertial and magnetic sensing of human body segment orientation.

This paper describes a complementary Kalman filter design to estimate orientation of human body segments by fusing gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer signals from miniature sensors. Ferromagnetic materials or other magnetic fields near the sensor module disturb the local earth magnetic field and, therefore, the orientation estimation, which impedes many (ambulatory) applications. In the filter, the gyroscope bias error, orientation error, and magnetic disturbance error are estimated. The filter was tested under quasi-static and dynamic conditions with ferromagnetic materials close to the sensor module. The quasi-static experiments implied static positions and rotations around the three axes. In the dynamic experiments, three-dimensional rotations were performed near a metal tool case. The orientation estimated by the filter was compared with the orientation obtained with an optical reference system Vicon. Results show accurate and drift-free orientation estimates. The compensation results in a significant difference (p < 0.01) between the orientation estimates with compensation of magnetic disturbances in comparison to no compensation or only gyroscopes. The average static error was 1.4 degrees (standard deviation 0.4) in the magnetically disturbed experiments. The dynamic error was 2.6 degrees root means square.

Acceleration↗

Contrast gain control is drift-rate dependent: an informational analysis.

Neurons in the visual cortex code relative changes in illumination (contrast) and adapt their sensitivities to the visual scene by centering the steepest regions of their sigmoidal contrast response functions (CRFs: spike rate as a function of contrast) on the prevailing contrast. The influence of this contrast gain control has not been reported at nonoptimal drift rates. We calculated the Fisher information contained in the CRFs of halothane-anesthetized cats. Fisher information gives a measure of the accuracy of contrast representations based on the ratio of the square of the steepness of the CRF and the spike-rate dependency of the spiking variance. Variance increases with spike rate, so Fisher information is maximal where the CRF is steep and spike rates are low. Here, we show that the contrast at which the maximal Fisher information (C(MFI)) occurs for each adapting drift rate is at a fixed level above the adapting contrast. For adapting contrasts of 0 to 0.32 the relationship between C(MFI) and adapting contrast is well described by a straight line with a slope close to 1. The intercept of this line on the C(MFI)-axis is drift-rate dependent, although the slope is not. At high drift rates relative to each cell's peak the C(MFI) offset is higher than that for low drift rates. The results show that the contrast coding strategy in visual cortex maximizes accuracy for contrasts above the prevailing contrast in the environment for all drift rates. We argue that tuning the system for accuracy at contrasts above the prevailing value is optimal for viewing natural scenes.

Animals↗

Measurement of bone by dual-photon absorptiometry (DPA) and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA).

Bone densitometry is essential for (a) confirming a diagnosis of osteoporosis, (b) determining the degree of osteopenia and risk of fracture, and (c) monitoring the response of bone to therapeutic agents. Fracture risk at specific axial fracture sites (spine, proximal femur), is associated directly with bone mineral density (BMD) at these sites. ROC analysis demonstrates that the diagnostic sensitivity of spine and femur BMD for spine and/or femur fracture is substantially superior to BMD of appendicular sites in the immediate postmenopausal period. Femoral neck BMD affords high diagnostic sensitivity for proximal femur fracture even in the elderly. Recent prospective studies have shown that bone densitometry can predict future fractures in postmenopausal women. Conventional DPA with 153Gd provides high accuracy for total body, spine, and femur BMD with adequate clinical precision of 1%, 2% and 3%, respectively. Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA), using either switched kVp or by k-edge filtering, offers better precision; typically the precision error is halved. The higher flux available from x-ray sources provides other advantages over DPA, including: improved spatial resolution (2 vs 4 mm), reduced radiation exposure (1 vs 2 mrem), and decreased scan times (3 to 10X). Improved DPA systems, with automatic gain stabilization to minimize drift, could offer clinical precision comparable to DEXA but the scan time and spatial resolution remain as before. Both DPA and DEXA allow detection of therapeutic efficacy in individual patients over the first year or two of therapy.

Absorptiometry, Photon↗