bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Sound and Socialist Identity
Authors: Tompkins David
Published: January 2012

This chapter provides a fresh perspective on the musical world of Stalinist East Germany, and argues that the vibrant soundscape was marked by the hopes and desires of both composers and the audience as well as by directives from cultural officials. Beginning with a brief discussion of expectations for musical compositions under Socialist Realism, it explores the rich array of music festivals in the post-war period, from prominent events in Berlin to those organized in smaller towns and the countryside. Concluding with an examination of Estradenkonzerte, or stage revues, the chapter asserts that the soundscape of the GDR was a negotiated project that helped to create a new socialist identity.
Rhetorical Style
Authors: Fahnestock Jeanne
Published: January 2012

Rhetorical Style promotes a renewed appreciation of the persuasive potential of the English language by demonstrating how language choices argue. It combines advice about effective style from the rhetorical tradition with insights from stylistics and discourse analysis to provide a full spectrum of methods for text analysis. Using examples from political speeches, nonfiction works, and newspaper reports, it emphasizes the continuing relevance of rhetorical principles of stylistic analysis and their usefulness in understanding effective arguments. Rhetorical Style is comprehensive in its coverage. Part I reviews the historical layers of English, its methods of word formation, its registers and varieties. Part II covers sentence basics in a brief and accessible way, noting how sentence forms serve persuasion, especially those optimal “iconic” forms that epitomize their content. The interactive dimension of texts is covered in part III in accounts of how speakers, audiences, other voices, and even situations and occasions can be selectively presented to serve an arguer's purposes. Finally, part IV goes beyond the sentence level to passage construction, explaining how a coherent string of sentences can build into a sustained argument. The final chapter explains Amplification, the tour de force rhetorical performance that draws on features from all the levels. Throughout, the explanations and the examples from actual texts provide evidence linking language choices to argument forms and persuasive purposes. Rhetorical insights into how language argues have survived for centuries. Rhetorical Style was written to give these enduring principles wider circulation.
New Words and Changing Uses
Authors: Fahnestock Jeanne
Published: January 2012

The English lexicon changes constantly as users coin new words and press existing words into new uses. Novel English words are formed by a variety of methods, including compounding existing words, adding affixes, clipping, blending, creating acronyms, and converting from one part of speech to another. Many of these word-morphing and coining options were discussed in rhetorical manuals, and understanding these methods of word formation leads to an appreciation of English morphology. Coined words are often rhetorical “hot spots”; they indicate an arguer's attempt to convey a novel content/form pairing, and they often argue for “newness” in themselves. This chapter offers examples of each form of coinage, some from arguments where the new word trenchantly delivers an argument. The chapter also covers the inevitable processes of users changing meanings over time, and of losing words as they fall out of current if not potential usage. The process of change and loss is illustrated with an extended case study of the variable meanings of the word junk, beginning with its use by Darwin in a passage from The Voyage of the Beagle where the sense is difficult to recover.
Tropes
Authors: Fahnestock Jeanne
Published: January 2012

While discussions of style in the rhetorical tradition lack the basic language categories (e.g., lexical field) that twentieth-century analysts have created, they did discriminate high-profile choices in their extensive catalogs of figure of speech. The manuals named tropes as figures involving substitutions of predictable words with terms that deliver nuanced meanings serving an argument. (Trope is now used in cultural studies in a much broader sense as a recurring cultural signifier; the sense used in this chapter is the narrower one of a category of word-level figures.) The characterization of individual tropes reveals rhetorical principles of word formation, reference, and meaning. This chapter discusses the four “master” tropes (synecdoche, metonymy, metaphor, irony) in addition to related less-known figures. A synecdoche replaces a term with a part of its referent or switches singulars and plurals. A metonymy substitutes according to other principles (e.g., source, cause, physical proximity), while the related trope antonomasia replaces a proper noun with an attribute. Metaphor, a substitution from a disjunct lexical field, epitomizes the argument from analogy; the dramatic, novel rhetorical metaphor is stressed here over the conceptual metaphor described by cognitive linguists. Established metaphors and metaphors extended to the point of allegory are also covered, as is the simile, though it is not strictly a trope. The final trope, irony, which requires cues of intention for construal, has a partner in the more easily decoded antiphrasis. In the same category of deliberate “misstatements” are hyperbole, litotes, amphiboly, paradox, and paralepsis (praeteritio), all word or phrase substitutions that serve evaluative purposes. The tropes covered in this chapter are illustrated with passages from arguments that demonstrate their persuasive effects.
Figures of Word Choice
Authors: Fahnestock Jeanne
Published: January 2012

While the tropes involve word substitutions hinging on meaning, other figures of speech from the rhetorical tradition cover devices of wordplay that can have surprising argumentative consequences. These devices can be separated roughly into three categories. The first group, schemes of words, includes agnominatio, the pairing of visually and aurally similar words, as in Malcolm X's alternatives of the ballot versus the bullet. Arguers achieve effects similar to the agnominatio when they alter a single word from its typically recognized form (metaplasm). The most important devices among the schemes of words are polyptoton (using derivatives with the same root, e.g., just and justice) and ploce (repeating precisely the same word). These devices spread a concept functionally and give it presence. They in turn are tweaked by puns (antanaclasis). The second group of devices relates words primarily by sound over meaning, resulting in aural patterns that can also have argumentative consequences. Assonance, consonance, and alliteration, often cited in studies of poetry, can support an arguer's creation of inseparable groups. The early rhetorical manuals also emphasized phrase-ending sound similarities (homeoeptoton, homeoeteleuton). The third set of devices has the common attribute of drawing attention to word selection itself. Arguers can string synonyms together in place of a single term (synonymia), displaying alternative versions of a concept. They can also deliberately make a mistake and then correct themselves, thereby lodging two expressions with the audience. They may also use euphemisms or deliberately cloaked words (oddly labeled emphasis in the manuals) to plant the unsayable in the audience's mind. All these devices exploit the brain's sorting routines based on visual, aural, and semantic distinctions among word forms and concepts.
Sentence Construction: Modification
Authors: Fahnestock Jeanne
Published: January 2012

Outside of the subject, verb, and object in an independent clause, everything else in a sentence is modification, the specifying detail that often carries or constrains an argument. Patterns of modification depend on the types of modifier used, their placement, and the overall amount of modification. This chapter sorts through the arguer's modifying options first according to the grammatical profile of the unit involved. At the highest level are adverb and adjective clauses (subordinate or relative; noun clauses, though not actually modifiers, are also covered here). Next are phrases divisible into three types: those based on verbs (participial and infinitive phrases), those based on nouns (appositives and absolute, resumptive or summative structures), and prepositional phrases. Finally there are single-word modifiers, sometimes grouped in chains according to how dissociable they are from the word modified. Modifiers can be multiplied or embedded, and individual texts can carry heavy modification in proportion to the predication. The point of this chapter is not simply to review these sentence constituents but to see their potential argumentative consequences as in the epithetical style. For example, an appositive offers, sometimes tendentiously, an apparently equivalent term, and constructions like the absolute phrase allow the arguer to promote a feature of a mentioned noun into attention. Infinitive phrases often attribute purposes for actions and participial phrases subordinate one action to another. Depending on where modifiers are placed in relation to the main predication, they often predispose audiences to the arguer's interpretation of evidence or events.
Sentence Architecture
Authors: Fahnestock Jeanne
Published: January 2012

In antiquity, the basics of predication and modification were covered by the grammarians, who trained students in basic literacy before they moved on to the teacher of rhetoric. The rhetoricians covered the further arts of constructing sentences to create special prosodic effects and to emphasize (foreground) key elements in an argument. Speakers have all the resources of the voice available to create emphasis. In writing, emphasis can be achieved in part by placing words at the end of clauses or sentences, before a pause, or by putting them in a main clause or using them as subjects or verbs. Inversions of normal word order (anastrophe or hyperbaton) may enhance emphasis. The overall architecture of a sentence can also be described in terms of how modifiers are placed in relation to the main sentence elements. Modifiers can branch left, postponing the main predication, or right, trailing it. Modifiers can also interrupt the sentence. Taking the placement of modifiers into account, rhetoricians since antiquity have distinguished loose sentences, which add detail after a complete predication, from periodic sentences, which become grammatically complete at the end. These variations in sentence architecture (or really in how sentences are experienced linearly by listeners or readers) have consequences for the manipulation of meaning in an argument, and rhetoricians such as Vico and Blair could be quite specific on such matters of sentence-level composition The optimal architecture for a sentence is iconic form, when the parts of a sentence are ordered in a way that reinforces or epitomizes the meaning.
Series
Authors: Fahnestock Jeanne
Published: January 2012

Continuing the attention to options in sentence construction, this chapter focuses on series, the use of three or more consecutive items to fill a single sentence slot, e.g., three or more adjectives or objects or prepositional phrases. By virtue of their grammatical placement, items in a series always become members of an implicit or announced category. Since antiquity, rhetorical style manuals have lavished attention on series, even specifying the kinds of categories and arguments they can construct, whether naming the parts of a whole (partitio), species of a genus (diaeresis), or features and adjuncts (enumeratio; a special exception was the congeries, a series of synonyms). By virtue of categorizing, series have the argumentative effect of bracketing, of equating their items by character and value. The order of items in a series can also be important. A listing can simply follow the principle of end weight, with the longest item last, or a series can order items according to some increasing or decreasing shared aspect (incrementum); sequential item-to-item linkage can even be suggested with overlapping phrasing (gradatio). The role of conjunctions in series is also important; the extreme cases omit all conjunctions (asyndeton) or place conjunctions between each item (polysyndeton). In their length, order, and use of conjunctions, series can serve arguments by suggesting an open-ended set or a complete and final listing.
Prosody and Punctuation
Authors: Fahnestock Jeanne
Published: January 2012

Rhetoric began as and remains an art of oral communication, but its advice has been adapted to writing since antiquity. Speech and writing as modes of language delivery, and hearing and reading as modes of language consumption, are worth distinguishing. Speakers can easily vary their output in pitch, loudness, sound duration, and pause length; they can realize a distinct prosody in a speech. Furthermore, speakers can add facial expressions and other paralinguistic features. Rhetorical manuals covered these performance elements in the canon of delivery, and advice on style considered prosody as rhythm, even to the point of specifying certain sound units like Aristotle's paean or the medieval cursus. Though transcriptions of spoken texts can never completely capture the immediacy and performance dimensions of speech, writing systems have evolved markers (punctuation) as aids to prosody. Brief attention to earlier punctuation practices suggests that earlier systems segmented written texts with more awareness of the larger argument structures built from smaller units. Even into the eighteenth century, written sentences were constructed according to balanced patterns managed by punctuation. The figures of speech also included attention to dramatic spoken effects, such as breaking off mid-statement (aposiopesis) or crying out (ecphonesis). But more important in argument is the prosodic contour of longer passages. The prosody of such passages can be appreciated by the simple expedient of first listing the various lengths of sentences in order to uncover where arguers have changed the pace with shorter or longer sentences.
Incorporating Other Voices
Authors: Fahnestock Jeanne
Published: January 2012

Set in larger, persisting communicative situations, rhetorical discourse often features language attributed to other speakers and texts. Speaking for others was especially important in ancient forensic settings where witness testimony was reported secondhand. The methods described in this chapter for incorporating language from other sources follow those in Leech and Short's Style in Fiction. Other voices can be quoted directly, though always with selection and often with stylization, or they can be quoted indirectly. Indirect quotation invites paraphrase that can wander tendentiously from the original wording, and, as it appears in written texts, indirect quotations often include zones of ambiguous attribution. The words or near-words of others can also be abandoned in favor of reporting the speech act achieved by their words. Written texts may be represented using the same options of direct or indirect quotation, or the reporting of speech acts, each of these options increasing the interpretive control of another text. Speakers, of course, without the benefit of quotation marks, have to rely more on vocal dynamics to mark off another's words. The rhetorical manuals favored the dramatic mimicking of other voices (prosopopoeia), going so far as to recommend that the absent, the dead, and even inanimate entities be given a voice in a speech. Bakhtin noted the extremes of language mixtures as the heteroglossia that can result from the often unattributed incorporation of others’ language, even to the point of the double voicing of a single word. In a new media age of IM and blogs, such multivoicing has in fact become routine.
Situation and Occasion
Authors: Fahnestock Jeanne
Published: January 2012

In everyday conversation, speakers and hearers inhabit specific places and times. Languages include deictic terms to refer to these givens of the physical situation. Speakers can choose to refer explicitly to their immediate location and moment, and in fact politicians typically do, even to the point of arranging to give a speech in a location that they can strategically reference. Though written texts seem to transcend the particulars of time and place, writers in some circumstances can use immediate deixis. But more often writers, and even speakers, can construct absent or hypothetical places and times through imaginary deixis. The result is the set description, recommended in rhetorical exercises since antiquity (as descriptio, ekphrasis, etc.). Time and place can also be invoked in broader senses. For example, the time referenced or constructed in an argument can ignore a particular hour or date and focus instead on time in the sense of an occasion, a kairotic moment that the arguer seizes on, such as an anniversary or a “first time.” Campbell in the eighteenth and Chilton in the twenty-first century note the argumentative potential in constructions of time and place, and Bitzer labeled these aspects of the rhetorical situation, calling special attention to the exigence, the immediate need for rhetorical discourse. To Burke, time and place were elements of the arguer's scene whose circumference was malleable. The number of critical terms in rhetoric covering notions of time and place shows the importance of this dimension of speaker/audience interaction.
Passage Patterns
Authors: Fahnestock Jeanne
Published: January 2012

A coherent string of clauses, using the connections described in the previous chapter, still has to build in the reader's mind into a hierarchically organized passage. Rhetorical manuals since antiquity have provided advice on building passages as compositional units serving arguments. This chapter reviews prescribed multisentence units, beginning with the enthymeme and syllogism and their expansion through embedded restatements, examples, and comparisons. The resulting structures are combined into full arguments, and they have been rediscovered in critical thinking textbooks. But teachers of rhetoric went further in prescribing the subunits of larger arguments through the series of exercises known as the progymnasmata. How subunits can work at different “grain sizes” is illustrated in the case of comparisons. The rhetoricians’ insights into modular text structure and the basic sequential patterns of parataxis (coordinated sequences) and hypotaxis (subordinated sequences) were lost in the early-twentieth-century decline of rhetoric. Composition teachers in the second half of the twentieth century rebuilt much of this advice in their attention to paragraph structure, and they rediscovered the figures of discourse management now collectively known as metadiscourse. Rhetorical insights into passage patterns bring analysts to the end of “bottom up” constructions and to the point where top-down advice about argument strategies and genre patterns take over.
Molecular cloning, characterization and expression analysis of B cell translocation gene 1 in grass carp Ctenopharyngodon idella
Authors: Fu Y. J. , Huang F. G. , Yuan T. , Gu J. R. , Luo G. Q. , Xu H.
Published: January 2012

An expressed sequence tag (EST) of B cell translocation gene (BTG) 1 (gcbtg1) was obtained from a grass carp Ctenopharyngodon idellus intestinal complementary (c)DNA library and the full‐length cDNA sequence was acquired by rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) technology. The predicted Gcbtg1 protein contains the box A and box B motifs which characterized the BTG and transducer of ERBB2 (TOB) family. Multiple alignment analysis reveals that Gcbtg1 shares an overall identity of 65–94% with Gcbtg1s of other vertebrates. Real‐time quantitative PCR analysis reveals that the highest expression level of gcbtg1 was detected in liver and the lowest in muscle. Western blotting analysis indicates that the immunological cross‐reactivity occurs between C. idella and human Homo sapiens BTG1 protein. A 1008 bp 5′‐flanking region sequence was cloned and analysed.
‘Out‐patient’ albumin dialysis for cholestatic patients with intractable pruritus
Authors: Leckie P. , Tritto G. , Mookerjee R. , Davies N. , Jones D. , Jalan R.
Published: January 2012

Background

Intractable pruritus is a major problem for some patients with cholestasis. Albumin dialysis has been shown to ameliorate pruritus, but long‐term outcome data are limited.

Aim

To evaluate the safety and efficacy of ‘out‐patient’ albumin dialysis using the molecular adsorbent recirculating system (MARS) in the treatment of intractable pruritus in cholestatic patients referred for liver transplantation for symptomatic relief.

Methods

Fifteen patients who failed to respond to standard medical therapy to control pruritus were included. Three MARS (6 h) sessions were performed per admission, and were repeated, if necessary. The intensity and severity of itch was quantified using itch severity and visual analogue scales (ISS and VAS).

Results

Molecular adsorbent recirculating system treatment was safe and associated with immediate and complete response in 11 patients; two patients had a partial response and two patients had no response. Thirty‐four treatments were performed during a follow‐up period of 15.7 months (3–46) with patients requiring a mean of two admissions (1–6). The mean VAS and ISS improved significantly (both P < 0.001) with improvement in the patient's perception of their quality of life. The duration of acceptable relief in responders was 3.3 months (range 2–5). No serious adverse events were recorded, but the platelet count and haemoglobin were reduced significantly.

Conclusion

Molecular adsorbent recirculating system therapy delivered in an ‘out‐patient’ setting is safe and effective with a high degree of patient acceptability. Albumin dialysis can be considered a viable therapeutic option for patients with severe intractable pruritus, in whom, the only other effective treatment option is liver transplantation.
p63, CK7, PAX8 and INI‐1: an optimal immunohistochemical panel to distinguish poorly differentiated urothelial cell carcinoma from high‐grade tumours of the renal collecting system
Authors: Carvalho Jason C , Thomas Dafydd G , McHugh Jonathan B , Shah Rajal B , Kunju Lakshmi P
Published: January 2012

Carvalho J C, Thomas D G, McHugh J B, Shah R B & Kunju L P  (2012) Histopathology 60, 597–608 p63, CK7, PAX8 and INI‐1: an optimal immunohistochemical panel to distinguish poorly differentiated urothelial cell carcinoma from high‐grade tumours of the renal collecting system

Aims:  High‐grade, poorly differentiated, infiltrative carcinomas involving the renal sinus region often pose challenging differential diagnostic considerations, specifically differentiation of urothelial carcinoma (UC) from renal cell carcinoma (RCC) subtypes. Accurate classification, especially the distinction of UC from RCC, is critical, as therapeutic approaches differ.

Methods and results:  Cluster analysis was performed on immunohistochemical data from 18 invasive UCs, six CDCs, two RMCs, 18 type 2 papillary renal cell carcinomas (PRCCs) and 20 high‐grade clear cell renal cell carcinomas (CRCCs) using a broad panel of traditional and novel immunohistochemical markers. The initial analysis with all antibodies segregates almost all the RCCs (45 of 46, 98%) from all the UCs based on the lack of expression of p63 in all (100%) RCCs, along with predominant strong expression of paired box gene 8 (PAX8) and vimentin, predominant lack of expression of high molecular weight cytokeratin (HMCK) and CK7 and variable expression of RCC, CD10, CA1X and PAX2. All the UCs cluster together with strong, diffuse reactivity for p63, predominant reactivity for CK7 and high molecular weight kininogen (HMWK), and absent to minimal staining with PAX8, RCC antigen, PAX2, alpha‐methylacyl‐CoA racemase (AMACR), carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX) and vimentin. After removing antibodies with significant overlap and/or minimal impact, a second analysis with a limited panel including p63, CK7, vimentin, integrase interactor 1 (INI‐1) and PAX8 was performed. Again, the majority of UCs cluster into one group and p63 positivity separates all UCs from RCCs.

Conclusions:  Lack of INI‐1 expression, noted exclusively in RMCs, segregates RMCs into a separate cluster. PAX8 is rarely positive (17%) in UC, is commonly expressed in CDC, RMC, PRCC and CRCC and is superior to PAX2.
The complement C1qA enhances retinoic acid‐inducible gene‐I‐mediated immune signalling
Authors: Wang Yetao , Tong Xiaomei , Zhang Junjie , Ye Xin
Published: January 2012

The cellular innate immune response is essential for recognizing and defending against viral infection. Retinoic acid‐inducible gene‐I (RIG‐I) and virus‐induced signaling adaptor (VISA) mediated immune signalling is critically involved in RNA‐virus‐induced innate immune responses. Here we demonstrate that the complement C1qA interacts with different RIG‐I pathway components and enhances RIG‐I‐VISA‐mediated signalling pathway as well as TBK1‐mediated activation of interferon‐β (IFN‐β) promoter. Our data show that over‐expression of C1qA up‐regulates RIG‐I‐mediated activation of IFN‐stimulated responsive element (ISRE) and nuclear factor‐κB reporters and IFN‐β transcription, but not IFN regulatory factor‐3‐mediated and inhibitor of κB kinase‐mediated activation of ISRE and nuclear factor‐κB promoter. In addition, C1qA can counteract the function of the C1q receptor gC1qR in RIG‐I‐mediated signalling. Our results reveal the important role of complement C1qA in the innate immune response.
Post‐transcriptional regulation of fukutin in an astrocytoma cell line
Authors: Yamamoto Tomoko , Kato Yoichiro , Hiroi Atsuko , Shibata Noriyuki , Osawa Makiko , Kobayashi Makio
Published: January 2012

Fukutin is the gene responsible for Fukuyama‐type congenital muscular dystrophy (FCMD), an autosomal recessive disease associated with central nervous system (CNS) and eye anomalies. Fukutin is involved in basement membrane formation via the glycosylation of α‐dystroglycan (α‐DG), and hypoglycosylation of α‐DG provokes the muscular, CNS and eye lesions of FCMD. Astrocytes play an important role in the pathogenesis of the CNS lesions, but the post‐transcriptional regulation of fukutin mRNA has not been elucidated. In this study, we investigated the characteristics of fukutin mRNA using an astrocytoma cell line that expresses fukutin and glycosylated α‐DG. The glycosylation of α‐DG was considered to be increased by over‐expression of fukutin and decreased by knockdown of fukutin. Knockdown of Musashi‐1, one of the RNA‐binding proteins involved in the regulation of neuronal differentiation, induced a decrease in fukutin mRNA. Immunoprecipitation and ELISA‐based RNA‐binding assay demonstrated possible binding between fukutin mRNA and Musashi‐1 protein. A relationship between fukutin mRNA and vimentin protein was also proposed. In situ hybridization for fukutin mRNA showed a positive cytoplasmic reaction including cytoplasmic processes. From these results, fukutin mRNA is suggested to be a localized mRNA up‐regulated by Musashi‐1 and to be a component of a mRNA‐protein complex which includes Musashi‐1 and (presumably) vimentin proteins.
Anti‐angiogenic properties of ADAMTS‐4 in vitro
Authors: Hsu Yi‐Ping , Staton Carolyn A. , Cross Neil , Buttle David J.
Published: January 2012

Angiogenesis is an indispensable mechanism in development and in many pathologies, including cancer, synovitis and aberrant wound healing. Many angiogenic stimulators and inhibitors have been investigated, and some have progressed to the clinic. A disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs (ADAMTS) is a group of multifunctional proteinases. ADAMTS‐1 and ADAMTS‐8 have been reported to be anti‐angiogenic. Here, we provide evidence that ADAMTS‐4, like ADAMTS‐1, is expressed by endothelial cells and binds to vascular endothelial groth factor (VEGF). Moreover, ADAMTS‐4 inhibited human dermal microvascular endothelial cells (HuDMEC) VEGF‐stimulated VEGF receptor (R) R2 phosphorylation, differentiation and migration, suggesting that ADAMTS‐4 may be a novel anti‐angiogenic molecule.
Effects of planting date and environmental factors on fusarium ear rot symptoms and fumonisin B1accumulation in maize grown in six North American locations
Authors: Parsons M. W. , Munkvold G. P.
Published: January 2012

Fusarium ear rot, primarily caused byFusarium verticillioides,causes losses in grain yield and quality and can result in contamination of grain by mycotoxins, primarily fumonisin B1. Disease severity and fumonisin B1contamination vary considerably among maize‐growing regions and from year to year. A 2 year field study was conducted in six locations in the USA, to evaluate the roles of planting date, maize hybrid, rainfall, temperature and insect pests in the variation in fusarium ear rot symptoms and fumonisin B1contamination. Grain samples were inspected to determine percentage of kernels with fusarium ear rot symptoms, categorized as ‘moulded’ or ‘starburst’; grain was also analysed by ELISA for fumonisin B1. Hybrid and planting date frequently had significant effects (P ≤ 0·05) on fusarium ear rot and fumonisin B1contamination. Earlier planting consistently resulted in lower ear rot severity, fumonisin B1levels and insect damage. Mould symptoms were highly correlated with thrips populations (Frankliniella occidentalis) (r = 0·78) and with fumonisin B1concentration (r = 0·89). The starburst symptom was not as closely correlated with thrips (r = 0·33) or fumonisin B1(r = 0·18). A multiple linear regression model identified highly significant effects on fumonisin B1for thrips, lower average daily precipitation after flowering, and location. These results strengthen the evidence that locations with high populations of ear‐infesting thrips and dry conditions after pollination have an increased risk of fumonisin contamination, and suggest that high fumonisin levels are much more likely in visibly moulded kernels compared to those with ‘starburst’ symptoms.
The relationship between naloxone‐induced cortisol and delta opioid receptor availability in mesolimbic structures is disrupted in alcohol‐dependent subjects
Authors: Wand Gary S. , Weerts Elise M. , Kuwabara Hiroto , Wong Dean F. , Xu Xiaoqiang , McCaul Mary E.
Published: January 2012

Hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal (HPA) axis responses following naloxone administration have been assumed to provide a measure of opioid receptor activity. Employing positron emission tomography (PET) using the mu opioid receptor (MOR) selective ligand [11C] carfentanil (CFN), we demonstrated that cortisol responses to naloxone administration were negatively correlated with MOR availability. In this study, we examined whether naloxone‐induced cortisol and adrenocorticotropin (ACTH) responses in 15 healthy control and 20 recently detoxified alcohol‐dependent subjects correlated with delta opioid receptor (DOR) availability in 15 brain regions using the DOR‐selective ligand [11C] methyl‐naltrindole (MeNTL) and PET imaging. The day after the scan, cortisol responses to cumulative doses of naloxone were determined. Peak cortisol and ACTH levels and area under the cortisol and ACTH curve did not differ by group. There were negative relationships between cortisol area under curve to naloxone and [11C] MeNTL‐binding potential (BPND) in the ventral striatum, anterior cingulate, fusiform cortices, temporal cortex, putamen and a trend in the hypothalamus of healthy control subjects. However, in alcohol‐dependent subjects, cortisol responses did not correlate with [11C]MeNTL BPND in any brain region. Plasma ACTH levels did not correlate with [11C]MeNTL BPND in either group. The study demonstrates that naloxone provides information about individual differences in DOR availability in several mesolimbic structures. The data also show that the HPA axis is intimately connected with mesolimbic stress pathways through opioidergic neurotransmission in healthy subjects but this relationship is disrupted during early abstinence in alcohol‐dependent subjects.
Prosthetic joint infection in solid organ transplant recipients: a retrospective case‐control study
Authors: Vergidis P. , Lesnick T.G. , Kremers W.K. , Razonable R.R.
Published: January 2012

Background

The clinical features and outcome of prosthetic joint infection (PJI) among solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients have not been characterized. We performed a retrospective, matched case‐control study to examine potential risk factors.

Methods

We reviewed cases of PJI among transplant recipients who were evaluated at the Mayo Clinic between 1989 and 2009. Cases were matched to non‐infected controls based on transplant type, prosthetic joint type, and order of organ transplantation/joint implantation.

Results

Among 367 patients with both a joint prosthesis and an SOT, there were 12 cases of infection in those receiving immunosuppression. These occurred in 8 renal recipients, 3 liver recipients, and 1 heart transplant recipient. Six subjects had hip and 6 had knee arthroplasty infections. The observed time to prosthesis failure ranged from 0.5 to 148 months after implantation. Gram‐positive bacteria (staphylococci and streptococci) caused the infection in 8 subjects. Two cases were caused by nontuberculous mycobacteria, whereas the remaining 2 cases were culture‐negative in the setting of antimicrobial use. We did not find a statistically significant association between obesity, diabetes mellitus, or antimicrobial prophylaxis (given in the setting of immunosuppression) and development of PJI. A marginal association was seen between surgical site infection and the risk of PJI; however, this did not reach statistical significance.

Conclusion

In our series, infection was mainly caused by gram‐positive bacterial pathogens, similar to the commonly encountered organisms in the immunocompetent host, although opportunistic pathogens were also isolated.
Fermentation of six different forages in the semi‐continuous fermentation technique Caesitec
Authors: Vosmer J. , Liesegang A. , Wanner M. , Zeyner A. , Suter D. , Hoelzle L. , Wichert B.
Published: January 2012

The aim of the present study was to compare carbohydrate degradation of forages which store carbohydrates either predominantly as fructan or starch, in horses’ hindgut. The effects of an abrupt change from hay‐based feeding to green fodder‐based feeding on the caecal flora were tested with the in vitro hindgut simulation technique ‘Caesitec’.

Six trials with different forages (English ryegrass, tall fescue, grass mixture‐horses, grass mixture‐cows, lucerne, white clover) were conducted. During a 4‐day stabilisation period, samples were taken once a day before loading the fermenters with hay. After diet‐change to forage‐based feeding, samples were taken four times a day. Ammonia and pH‐value were measured before and 1, 2 and 6 h after loading the ‘Caesitec’. Gas formation was measured daily. Bacterial numbers, lactate and short chain fatty acids were detected at four time‐points of each trial.

The grass mixtures contained the highest amounts of fructan. The pH‐values were in the physiological range from pH 6 up to 7 (6.58–6.83) by feeding all forages. Gas formation, anaerobic and aerobic bacterial numbers increased after diet change from hay to any forage.

The maximum amount of fructan (3.75 g/kg) in swiss pasture did not cause a permanent pathological change in the hindgut‐flora.
Finding a role for Th17 cells in hepatitis C pathogenesis
Authors: Bowen David G
Published: January 2012

See article in J. Gastroenterol. Hepatol. 2012; 27: 273–278.
Comparative analysis of recombinant Human Papillomavirus 8 L1 production in plants by a variety of expression systems and purification methods
Authors: Matić Slavica , Masenga Vera , Poli Alice , Rinaldi Riccardo , Milne Robert G. , Vecchiati Manuela , Noris Emanuela
Published: January 2012

Human papillomavirus 8 (HPV‐8), one of the high‐risk cutaneous papillomaviruses (cHPVs), is associated with epidermodysplasia verruciformis and nonmelanoma skin cancer in immuno‐compromised individuals. Currently, no vaccines against cHPVs have been reported; however, recent studies on cross‐neutralizing properties of their capsid proteins (CP) have fostered an interest in vaccine production against these viruses. We examined the potential of producing HPV‐8 major CP L1 in Nicotiana benthamiana by agroinfiltration of different transient expression vectors: (i) the binary vector pBIN19 with or without silencing suppressor constructs, (ii) the nonreplicating Cowpea mosaic virus‐derived expression vector pEAQ‐HT and (iii) a replicating Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV)‐based vector alone or with signal peptides. Although HPV‐8 L1 was successfully expressed using pEAQ‐HT and TMV, a 15‐fold increase was obtained with pEAQ‐HT. In contrast, no L1 protein could be immune detected using pBIN19 irrespective of whether silencing suppressors were coexpressed, although such constructs were required for identifying L1‐specific transcripts. A fourfold yield increase in L1 expression was obtained when 22 C‐terminal amino acids were deleted (L1ΔC22), possibly eliminating a nuclear localization signal. Electron microscopy showed that plant‐made HPV‐8 L1 proteins assembled in appropriate virus‐like particles (VLPs) of T = 1 or T = 7 symmetry. Ultrathin sections of L1ΔC22‐expressing cells revealed their accumulation in the cytoplasm in the form of VLPs or paracrystalline arrays. These results show for the first time the production and localization of HPV‐8 L1 protein in planta and its assembly into VLPs representing promising candidate for potential vaccine production.
Macroeconomics versus environmental‐macroeconomics*
Authors: Thampapillai Dodo J.
Published: January 2012

When environmental macroeconomic frameworks replace standard macroeconomic frameworks differences in policy outcomes ensue. The non‐recognition of real environmental capacity constraints could explain the inability of standard frameworks to deliver on certain macroeconomic goals. Herein, environmental capital depreciation is internalised into analytic frameworks of factor utilisation, aggregate demand and aggregate supply. The analyses reveal that restricted income and wage domains alongside limited environmental capacity constrain economic performance. Hence, environmental capacity expansion and initiatives towards sustainability warrant specific attention. Illustrations are made with reference to the Australian economy and her response to the 2008–2010 global financial crisis.
Multiple Fully Stressed Structural Designs and the Stress Ratio Method
Authors: Burns Scott A. , Orlet Michael W. , Raschke Mark A.
Published: January 2012

Abstract: Some structures are capable of being proportioned in several different ways such that each one is a fully stressed design. This paper investigates the nature of these multiple fully stressed designs, the relationships that exist between them, and the behavior of the stress ratio method when applied to the sizing of such structures. “Basins of attraction” constructions are used to graphically portray the behavior of the stress ratio method and to compare it with those of alternative design techniques. It is shown that both attracting and repelling fully stressed designs coexist in the design space under the action of the stress ratio method. A simple modification of the stress ratio method is suggested for transforming repellers into attractors. Instances of limit cycle and chaotic behavior of the stress ratio method are also presented.
Using ‘Foundation'as Inculturation Hermeneutic in a WorldChurch: Did Rahner Validate Lonergan?
Authors: Orji Cyril
Published: January 2012

Lonergan writes both of a foundation for human knowing as well as of a functional specialty he termed ‘foundations’. Neither of these is the same as ‘foundation’ as the term is used by nonfoundationalists. Lack of clarity and differentiation regarding what is meant by ‘foundationalism’ sometimes informs the perception thatLonergan is a foundationalist. The burden of this essay is to show thatLonergan's philosophical and theological thought, as well as his use of the term ‘foundations’, fall awkwardly, if at all, under anti‐foundationalist strictures. There is a need to clarify and differentiate a range of terms and concepts in this regard.Lonergan shares with anti‐foundationalists the rejection of ocular metaphors and other naïve approaches to human knowing.Lonergan's own search for ‘foundations’, which I argue is critical for a worldChurch consciousness and meets the Rahner‐test for a worldChurch, is part of an overall project to situate knowing within identifiable, recurring patterns in the operations of human consciousness.
Which decision‐making arrangements generate the strongest legitimacy beliefs? Evidence from a randomised field experiment
Authors: ESAIASSON PETER , GILLJAM MIKAEL , PERSSON MIKAEL
Published: January 2012

How can democracies satisfy citizens' demands for legitimate decision making? This article reports findings from a randomised field experiment designed to mimic decision making in large‐scale democracies. Natural collectives of individuals with a shared history and future (high school classes) were studied. They were asked to make a decision about how to spend a sum of money under arrangements imposed by the researchers and distributed randomly across classes. Within this setting, empirical support for three ideas about legitimacy enhancing decision‐making arrangements is tested: participatory constitution‐making; personal involvement in the decision‐making process; and fairness in the implementation of arrangements. Throughout the analyses it was found that personal involvement is the main factor generating legitimacy beliefs.
Distribution of 5‐ht1E receptors in the mammalian brain and cerebral vasculature: an immunohistochemical and pharmacological study
Authors: Klein MT , Teitler M
Published: January 2012

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

The 5‐ht1E receptor is highly expressed in the human brain and its structure is conserved in humans, suggesting an important physiological role for 5‐ht1E receptors. However, neither the function nor the distribution of this receptor has been characterized in the mammalian brain.

EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH

Rats and mice lack the 5‐ht1E receptor gene; thus, we used guinea pig brain tissue and immunofluorescent staining techniques to provide the first specific localization of 5‐ht1E receptors in the mammalian brain.

KEY RESULTS

High levels of 5‐ht1E receptors are detected in olfactory bulb glomeruli as well as the molecular layer of the dentate gyrus (DG). In DG membranes, BRL54443, a 5‐ht1E/5‐HT1F agonist, selectively stimulated 5‐ht1E receptors and potently inhibited forskolin‐dependent cAMP production (IC50= 14 nM). The staining pattern of 5‐ht1E receptors in brain tissue suggests that this receptor is expressed predominantly in neurons rather than in glia. Additionally, 5‐ht1E receptors were detected in the adventitial layer of cerebral arteries but not in the microvasculature, venous tissue or other brain arteries.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

These observations should help to predict clinical effects of 5‐ht1E‐selective drugs. For example, the stimulation of 5‐ht1E receptors and subsequent inhibition of adenylate cyclase activity in the DG suggests that 5‐ht1E receptors may mediate regulation of hippocampal activity by 5‐HT, making it a possible drug target for the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders characterized by memory deficits (such as Alzheimer's disease) or as a target for the treatment of temporal lobe epilepsy.
From Identity Verification to Behavior Prediction: Ethical Implications of Second Generation Biometrics
Authors: Sutrop Margit , Laas‐Mikko Katrin
Published: January 2012

In this article, we will compare ethical issues raised by first and second generation biometrics. First generation biometrics use characteristics readily visible to the naked eye to ensure that the person identified is the person he claims to be, whereas second generation biometrics focus on behavioral patterns with the aim of predicting suspicious behavior or hostile intentions. While the collection of biometric features for identification is visible to the person involved, capturing biometric features from a distance may go unnoticed. Our study of a range of U.S. and European projects of second generation biometrics, particularly of Future Attribute Screening Technology and Automatic Detection of Abnormal Behaviour and Threats in crowded Spaces, shows that if data subjects are not aware of the processing of their data, and if behavioral patterns are interpreted without any knowledge of the subject's will and motives, there are risks of discrimination and stigmatization. Thus, second generation biometrics raise some new ethical concerns besides issues of integrity, privacy, and data protection and further underscore the importance of the principle of informed consent in order to maintain public trust.
Biometric Security and Privacy Using Smart Identity Management and Interoperability: Validation and Vulnerabilities of Various Techniques
Authors: Wechsler Harry
Published: January 2012

The central position of this article is that validation and interoperability are paramount for the effective and ethical use of biometrics. Illuminating the relevance for policymakers of the science underlying the security and privacy aspects of biometrics, this article calls for adequate and enforceable performance metrics that can be independently corroborated. Accordingly, the article considers biometrics and forensics for the dual challenges of addressing security and privacy using smart identity management. The discussion revolves around the concepts of “personally identifiable information” (PII) and interoperability with emphasis on quantitative performance analysis and validation for uncontrolled operational settings, variable demographics, and distributed and federated operations. Validation metrics includes expected rates of identification/misidentification, precision, and recall. The complementary concepts of identity and anonymity are addressed in terms of expected performance, functionality, law and ethics, forensics, and statistical learning. Biometrics encompasses appearance, behavior, and cognitive state or intent. Modes of deployment and performance evaluation for biometrics are detailed, with operational and adversarial challenges for both security and privacy described in terms of trustworthiness, vulnerabilities, functional creep, and feasibility of safeguards. The article underscores how lack of interoperability is mostly due to overfitting and tuning to well‐controlled settings, so that validation merely confirms “teaching to the test” rather than preparation for real‐world deployment. Most important for validation is reproducibility of results including full information on the experimental design used, that forensic exclusion is allowed, and that scientific methods for performance evaluation are followed. The article concludes with expected developments regarding technology use and advancements that bear on security and privacy, including data streams and video, de‐anonymization and reidentification, social media analytics and cyber security, and smart camera networks and surveillance.