bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Pompeius Festus, Sextus
Authors: North John , Glinister Fay
Published: April 2016

Pompeius Festus was a man of whom nothing is known except that he produced a shortened version (epitome) of the Lexicon of Verrius Flaccus, a massive dictionary of Latin as it was in the time of Augustus Caesar. Festus probably wrote in the 2nd century ce, and his epitome survives only in part, even the extant part being damaged. A still briefer version (an epitome of the epitome) was produced in the time of Charlemagne by Paul the Deacon; that version does survive in full. The single damaged manuscript was discovered in the 15th century, first published early in the 16th, and subsequently worked on by a succession of first-rate scholars. Its contents are mostly rare or poetic words rather than everyday ones; but Festus illustrates his entries with quotations from the Latin of the middle republican period, thus preserving texts, etymologies, religious and political antiquities and much other valuable information. The words are arranged alphabetically, but unlike a modern dictionary, the alphabetization only reaches to the second letter, so that looking words up as we do today must have been a long and painful job.
Prostitution, secular, female
Authors: McGinn Thomas A.J.
Published: April 2016

The task of defining terms such as prostitution, prostitute, and courtesan presents significant challenges, especially insofar as the relevant Greek and Latin terminology can both inform and mislead. The evidence for Greece, here above all Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries bce, and Rome, with the main focus on the period from c. 200 bce to c. 235 ce, suggests that both societies broadly tolerated the sale of sex, though not in an entirely unqualified way. Attitudes toward practitioners were typically more negative. While neither the Athenians nor the Romans banned prostitution outright in the periods under discussion, they outlawed or at least regulated certain aspects of its practice. Legal rules tended to focus on questions of status, usually to the disfavour of prostitutes and pimps. In terms of scale, prostitution can have occupied but a small place in the economies of Greece and Rome, which were overwhelmingly agricultural in nature. To all appearances, however, it was widespread, freely available, and an important object of investment as well as a source of profit for members of the upper classes, meaning that it seems to have constituted an important aspect of the service sector.
Prudentius Clemens, Aurelius, 348–after 405 CE
Authors: O'Hogan Cillian
Published: April 2016

Aurelius Prudentius Clemens was a Christian Latin poet who wrote in a variety of genres and metres. Born in northern Spain, in 348ce, he had a career in public administration before retiring to write poetry. His major works include the Liber Cathemerinon (poems keyed to the liturgy and religious calendar), Psychomachia (an allegorical epic on the battle between Virtues and Vices for the human soul), and the Liber Peristephanon (lyric poems in praise of the early martyrs of the church). Prudentius was particularly influenced by the works of Virgil and Horace, and aimed in his poetry to combine the form and language of classical Latin poetry with the message of Christianity. The most important Christian Latin poet of late antiquity, Prudentius was extremely influential throughout the Middle Ages.
sanctuaries, Greek
Authors: Miles Margaret M.
Published: April 2016

Greek sanctuaries were areas set apart for devotion to the gods, where people made sacrifices and other offerings. Reflecting the underlying unity of Greek religions across a broad geography, the sanctuaries are found where Greeks settled and formed communities, from the east coast of Spain to Ukraine, and the south coast of France to Libya and northern Egypt. The sanctuaries could be as simple as a rural shrine by a spring, in a cave, or by a crossroads, or contain busy temples in cities or large complexes as at Delphi, Olympia, Dodona, and Delos. Most were open to everyone, and they became focal points for many aspects of Greek culture: social life, politics, commemoration, music and poetry, athletics, medicine, and displays of dedicated art and architecture. Sanctuaries often enhanced the economies of their regions. They marked coastlines, trading routes, and territorial borders. What they have in common is an area set apart with defined boundaries, thought of as belonging to a particular Greek deity or deities, with an altar for sacrifices. Many of them were in use for at least a thousand years.
slavery, Greek
Authors: Lewis David
Published: April 2016

Our earliest glimpses of slavery in Greece are afforded by Linear B tablets from the Bronze Age. Following the collapse of the palatial institutions, slavery disappears from view; but when we catch sight of it again in the Homeric epics and in Hesiod’s Works & Days, it appears as an important and entrenched feature of society. Our evidence again becomes patchy for the late archaic period, before a mass of evidence pertaining to the classical era (mainly focused on Athens) affords us a much more granular knowledge of slavery and its role in society. Literary evidence for slavery becomes thinner as we move into the Hellenistic and Roman periods, but this deficiency is remedied by a profusion of inscriptions and papyri.
Apollonius
Authors: Fried Michael N.
Published: April 2016

Apollonius of Perga (fl. 200 bce) was the youngest of the three leading mathematicians of the Hellenistic age, the other two being Euclid and Archimedes. His most significant work was Conics. Conics, comprising eight books, remained the most comprehensive treatment of the subject of conic sections until the 17th century. It was because of Conics that Apollonius was known in antiquity as the “Great Geometer.” Its first four books formed a “course in the elements” of conics, as Apollonius describes it. In these books, which are the only works of Apollonius extant in Greek, he shows how the parabola, ellipse, hyperbola, and opposite sections (what in the early 21st century are called the two branches of a hyperbola) could be obtained by sectioning an oblique double-napped cone; he specified their distinct properties, diameters, axes, tangents, and asymptotes. These books also include Apollonius’s solution to the three- and four-line locus. The later four books, of which only three survive in an Arabic translation, consider “special topics”: “maximum and minimum lines”; similarity and equality of conic sections; special theorems related to limits of possibility (diorismoi), involving diameters, conjugate diameters and the “figures” related to them; determinate problems in conics. The eighth book—containing problems in conics—was lost sometime in late antiquity, but reconstructions were attempted by Ibn al-Haytham and Edmond Halley. Other works by Apollonius include Cutting Off of a Ratio, Cutting Off of an Area, Determinate Section, Tangencies, Vergings, and Plane Loci. These are mentioned in Pappus’s Collection, Book VII and are central to the tradition of Greek analysis. Apollonius, apparently, also did work in astronomy.
Sumerian
Authors: Worthington Martin , Chetwood Mark
Published: April 2016

Sumerian is a language of ancient Iraq. It is ergative and has no known relatives. Attested from the early 3rd millennium bce, it remained a living language until c. 1900 bce but was still used in the Common Era (chiefly in the context of temple liturgy). It survives on tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets. While the majority of these are administrative records, there are also substantial numbers of literary manuscripts (tablets), including narratives about Gilgamesh and hymns by the priestess Enheduanna, the world’s first-known named poet. A sub-variety with the ancient label “Emesal” is sometimes thought to have been a gender-lect.
arbitration, Greek
Authors: Harris Edward , Magnetto Anna
Published: April 2016

One of the most important decisions a litigant could make was the choice whether to submit his dispute to a private arbitrator or to go to trial. Private arbitration had several advantages because it provided a more flexible procedure and afforded the possibility of compromise solutions aimed at promoting good relations between the parties. By contrast, a trial was an all-or-nothing procedure, which created winners and losers. Nevertheless, there were disadvantages to private arbitration: the arbitrators might be reluctant to vote against a friend, or one of the parties might not agree to arbitration. Because public officials were not involved, documents might be lost. The institution of public arbitrators retained the advantages of private arbitration but avoided several of the disadvantages. Above all, it aimed to promote good relations between the parties and to avoid a bitter fight in court.

Interstate arbitration is identified by the sources as a genuine Greek tradition, attested to be from the Archaic period, that was employed and fostered by other powers, such as the Hellenistic Kings and Republican Rome. It allowed two parties in conflict to solve disputes by resorting to the judgment of a third party agreed upon by both. Its use contributed to the establishing of forms of international law, encouraging the poleis to identify a set of shared principles and rules, at least for territorial disputes, the most common kind of controversy.
wall of Aurelian
Authors: Mancini Rossana
Published: April 2016

In 271 ce, nominally in response to the empire’s state of vulnerability, the Emperor Aurelian decided to protect Rome with a curtain wall, a decision that may also have been driven by social pressures in the city and the form of which was motivated by economic limitations. Following its completion by Probus, the wall has subsequently received periodic improvements from Maxentius and Honorius through Theodoric and medieval and Renaissance popes and into the modern period when the walls became partially accessible to the public.
popular culture, modern
Authors: Nisbet Gideon
Published: April 2016

Classical antiquity echoes through everyday life, and is continuously being mediated for and consumed by mass culture and subcultures; these popular representations shape, and are shaped by, non-specialist understandings of antiquity. Empowered by new media, diverse constituencies (including cult media audiences and minorities, but also ethnic-nationalists and hate groups) interrogate antiquity through its reception history to find versions of ‘Greece’ and ‘Rome’ that help develop their own agendas. As a recent and developing specialisation informed by trends in cultural and media studies, the academic study of classical reception in popular culture poses new challenges for, and breathes new life into, the discipline of Classics. After a slow start, such study has embraced mass and ‘cult’ media including television, videogames, popular music, comics and graphic novels, science fiction and fantasy, and children’s and young adult (YA) fiction. Scholarly rebuttals of appropriations of antiquity by hate groups are re-engaging Classics with the politics of representation (of the past, and of ourselves and each other) in the here and now.
emotions
Authors: Cairns Douglas
Published: April 2016

“Emotion” is a vernacular rather than a scientific concept. The experiences that are called emotions in English are a subset of a wider range of affective experiences. Categories of particular emotions similarly constitute families whose members are by no means homogeneous. As perceptions of the world and of ourselves, emotions are richly permeated by cognition. As syndromes of multiple factors, they have an event-like structure that lends itself to narrative explanation. Historical analysis of emotion(s) thus requires close attention to conceptual history and to contexts, both immediate and cultural/historical. Classicists can explore the historical contingency of “emotion” in Greek and Latin, both in the theories of the major philosophical schools and in a variety of literary texts. But emotion history now uses a much wider range of literary, documentary, visual, and material evidence. Understanding emotion is an essential aspect of many early 21st-century approaches to Classics, especially in ancient history, classical literature and rhetoric, and ancient philosophy, just as the visual and physical remains of the classical world are rich in emotional implications and deeply entwined with the representation, performance, and pragmatics of ancient emotion.
artisans and craftsmen
Authors: Hawkins Cameron
Published: April 2016

The social worlds of artisans and craftsmen were structured around skill on both conceptual and practical levels. On a conceptual level, artisans employed skill (τέχνη / ars) as a crucial component of the identities they constructed for themselves—identities that differed distinctly from perceptions of artisans among the elite, who dismissed most craftsmen as “base” manual labourers. On a practical level, the importance of apprenticeship as a tool for the acquisition of skill had a profound impact on the social profile of artisans and craftsmen: while it ensured that skill could be acquired by both free and enslaved artisans, it limited opportunities for women and for children born into households of low economic status. From an economic perspective, the small workshop remained the backbone of artisanal production. The ubiquity of small workshops in the economy can be explained best as the product of artisans’ efforts to respond to the risks created by product markets in which demand was inherently seasonal and uncertain. With some exceptions, artisans sought to mitigate their exposure to risk by minimizing fixed costs, while nevertheless preserving the ability to expand their output in periods of elevated demand. This was true even in industries that fostered specialization in discrete and technically demanding stages of a vertical production process: in these industries, artisans typically coordinated their production not within integrated firms, but rather within subcontracting networks.
Asianism and Atticism
Authors: Kim Lawrence
Published: April 2016

Asianism is a modern coinage referring to the rhetorical practice of certain Greek and Latin orators whose styles were designated by ancient critics as Asian (Asianus, Asiaticus, Ἀσιανός)—the “Asia” in question being the Republican Roman province. Asian eloquence was often contrasted unfavorably to a corresponding Attic style (Atticus, Ἀττικός), which was modelled on the prose of classical Athenian writers (a practice now known as Atticism). This opposition between Asian and Attic styles is first attested in Roman oratorical circles during the mid-1st century bce and was subsequently adopted by Greek critics in Augustan Rome, but seems to have fallen out of fashion by the reign of Tiberius. While Attic remains a general stylistic ideal in the more broadly conceived classicism of Imperial Greek literature, the term Asian disappears as a stylistic label. In a related, but separate development, from the late 1st century ce onwards, Greek literary writers increasingly adhered to a linguistic, rather than stylistic, variety of Atticism, which concentrated on reproducing the ancient Attic dialect used by Athenian authors of the 5th and 4th centuries bce. This Atticism was opposed, not to anything Asian, but to the literary koinê of the Hellenistic and early Imperial era.
Agricultural Technology Choice and Transport
Authors: Damania Richard , Berg Claudia , Russ Jason , Federico Barra A. , Nash John , Ali Rubaba
Published: April 2016

This article seeks to address an old and recurring theme in development economics—the slow adoption of new technologies by farmers in many developing countries. We explore a somewhat novel explanation for this puzzle—the link between market access and the incentives to adopt a new technology when there are non‐convexities. We develop a theoretical model to guide the empirical analysis that uses spatially disaggregated agricultural production data from the International Food Policy Research Institute and Living Standards Measurement Study survey data for Nigeria. We estimate the impact of transport costs on crop production, adoption of modern technologies, and the differential impact on returns of modern versus traditional farmers. To overcome the limitation of data availability on travel costs for much of Africa, we combine road survey data and GIS roads networks to generate the most thorough and accurate road network available, to our knowledge. Using these data and the Highway Development Management Model (HDM‐4), we compute minimum travel costs from each location to the market. Consistent with our theory we find that transportation costs are critical in determining technology choices, with a greater responsiveness among farmers who adopt modern technologies, and at times a perverse (negative) response to lower transport costs among those who employ more traditional techniques. In sum, we present compelling evidence that the constraints to the adoption of modern technologies and access to markets are interconnected, and so should be targeted jointly.
Comparison of acoustic structures between heads of a narrow-ridged finless porpoise fetus and its mother
Authors: Song Zhongchang , Zhang Yu , Wang Xianyan , Wei Chong , Berggren Per
Published: April 2016

Computed tomography (CT) was used to compare the tissue structures involved in sound production and reception in a fetus and its maternal body of a female finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaorientalis sunameri) found stranded at Huian, Fujian Province, China, in April 2014. Qualitative assessment of the CT images revealed the physical development of main acoustic tissues including melon, blubber, mandibular fat, muscle, and connective tissue in a 10-month old fetus. Compared to the maternal body, the cranium of the fetus was not enclosed, air sacs and nasal meatus were both absent, and the maxilla was much thinner. Furthermore, Hounsfield unit (HU) measurements from CT scanning were used to quantify the difference between the fetus and its maternal body for melon, blubber, mandibular fat, muscle, and connective tissue. Statistical analyses revealed significant differences in HU between all 5 structures melon, blubber, mandibular fat, muscle, and connective tissue (P < 0.001) both in the fetus and maternal body. The median HU values of melon, blubber, mandibular fat, and muscle in the fetus (−61.0, −74.0, −24.0, and 25.0, respectively) were higher than those recorded in the maternal body (−85.0, −85.0, −69.0, and 12.0, respectively). However, the median HU value of connective tissue (50.0) in the fetus was lower than that recorded in the maternal body (60.0). The results show that the acoustic tissue structures were not fully developed in the fetus and depending on the actual age of the fetus the structures may not be fully formed by the time of birth. Further studies are needed to determine at what age finless porpoise calves have fully developed the tissue structures needed to produce and use ultrasound beams for echolocation.
French Colonial Rule
Authors: Ginio Ruth , Sessions Jennifer
Published: April 2016

The French presence in Africa dates to the 17th century, but the main period of colonial expansion came in the 19th century with the invasion of Ottoman Algiers in 1830, conquests in West and Equatorial Africa during the so-called scramble for Africa and the establishment of protectorates in Tunisia and Morocco in the decades before the First World War. To these were added parts of German Togo and Cameroon, assigned to France as League of Nations mandates after the war. By 1930, French colonial Africa encompassed the vast confederations of French West Africa (AOF, f. 1895) and French Equatorial Africa (AEF, f. 1905), the western Maghreb, the Indian Ocean islands of Madagascar, Réunion, and the Comoros, and Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. Within this African empire, territories in sub-Saharan Africa were treated primarily as colonies of exploitation, while a settler colonial model guided colonization efforts in the Maghreb, although only Algeria drew many European immigrants. Throughout Africa, French rule was characterized by sharp contradictions between a rhetorical commitment to the “civilization” of indigenous people through cultural, political, and economic reform, and the harsh realities of violent conquest, economic exploitation, legal inequality, and sociocultural disruption. At the same time, French domination was never as complete as the solid blue swathes on maps of “Greater France” would suggest. As in all empires, colonized people throughout French Africa developed strategies to resist or evade French authority, subvert or co-opt the so-called civilizing mission, and cope with the upheavals of occupation. After the First World War, new and more organized forms of contestation emerged, as Western-educated reformers, nationalists, and trade unions pressed by a variety of means for a more equitable distribution of political and administrative power. Frustrated in the interwar period, these demands for change spurred the process of decolonization after the Second World War. Efforts by French authorities and some African leaders to replace imperial rule with a federal organization failed, and following a 1958 constitutional referendum, almost all French territories in sub-Saharan Africa claimed their independence. In North Africa, Tunisian and Moroccan nationalists were able to force the French to negotiate independence in the 1950s, but decolonization in Algeria, with its million European settlers, came only after a protracted and brutal war (1954–1962) that left deep scars in both postcolonial states. Although formal French rule in Africa had ended by 1962, the ties it forged continue to shape relations between France and its former colonial territories throughout the continent.
FOCUS2: agile and sensitive classification of metagenomics data using a reduced database
Authors: Silva Genivaldo Gueiros Z. , Dutilh Bas E. , Edwards Robert A.
Published: April 2016

Metagenomics approaches rely on identifying the presence of organisms in the microbial community from a set of unknown DNA sequences. Sequence classification has valuable applications in multiple important areas of medical and environmental research. Here we introduce FOCUS2, an update of the previously published computational method FOCUS. FOCUS2 was tested with 10 simulated and 543 real metagenomes demonstrating that the program is more sensitive, faster, and more computationally efficient than existing methods.

Availability

The Python implementation is freely available athttps://edwards.sdsu.edu/FOCUS2.

Supplementary information

available at Bioinformatics online.
Multi-Connection Pattern Analysis: Decoding the Representational Content of Neural Communication
Authors: Li Yuanning , Richardson R. Mark , Ghuman Avniel Singh
Published: April 2016

The lack of multivariate methods for decoding the representational content of interregional neural communication has left it difficult to know what information is represented in distributed brain circuit interactions. Here we present Multi-Connection Pattern Analysis (MCPA), which works by learning mappings between the activity patterns of the populations as a factor of the information being processed. These maps are used to predict the activity from one neural population based on the activity from the other population. Successful MCPA-based decoding indicates the involvement of distributed computational processing and provides a framework for probing the representational structure of the interaction. Simulations demonstrate the efficacy of MCPA in realistic circumstances. Applying MCPA to fMRI data shows that interactions between visual cortex regions are sensitive to information that distinguishes individual natural images, suggesting that image individuation occurs through interactive computation across the visual processing network. MCPA-based representational similarity analyses (RSA) results support models of error coding in interactions among regions of the network. Further RSA analyses relate the non-linear information transformation operations between layers of a computational model (HMAX) of visual processing to the information transformation between regions of the visual processing network. Additionally, applying MCPA to human intracranial electrophysiological data demonstrates that the interaction between occipital face area and fusiform face area contains information about individual faces. Thus, MCPA can be used to assess the information represented in the coupled activity of interacting neural circuits and probe the underlying principles of information transformation between regions.
MicroRNA miR-29 controls a compensatory response to limit neuronal iron accumulation during adult life and aging
Authors: Ripa Roberto , Dolfi Luca , Terrigno Marco , Pandolfini Luca , Arcucci Valeria , Groth Marco , Terzibasi Eva Tozzini , Baumgart Mario , Cellerino Alessandro
Published: April 2016

Iron is an essential metal cofactor for enzymes involved in many cellular functions such as energy generation and cell proliferation. However, excessive iron concentration leads to increased oxidative stress and toxicity. As such, iron homeostasis is strictly controlled by two RNA binding proteins known as Iron Regulatory Proteins (IRPs) that regulate at post-transcriptional level the expression of iron management genes. Despite this fine regulation, impairment of iron homeostasis occurs during aging: iron progressively accumulates in several organs and in turn, it exacerbates cellular vulnerability and tissue decay. Moreover, excessive iron accumulation within the CNS is observed in many neurodegenerative diseases. We investigated the age-dependent changes of iron homeostasis using the short lived fish Nothobranchius furzeri. Here, we show that i) both iron content and expression of microRNA family miR-29 increase during adult life and aging in the N. furzeri brain; ii) iron up-regulates miR-29 expression in fish brain and murine neurons, while in turn miR-29 targets the 3′-UTR of IREB2 mRNA, reducing iron intake; iii) Transgenic fish with knock-down of miR-29 show significant adult-onset up-regulation of IRP2 and its target TFR1 in neurons and display enhanced age-dependent accumulation of brain iron; iv) miR-29 triggers a global gene expression response that partially overlaps with that induced by aging.

Our studies indicate that miR-29 modulates intracellular iron homeostasis and is up-regulated as an adaptive response to limit excessive iron accumulation and prevent early-onset aging processes.
Simultaneous fMRI and eye gaze recordings during prolonged natural stimulation - a studyforrest extension
Authors: Hanke Michael , Adelhöfer Nico , Kottke Daniel , Iacovella Vittorio , Sengupta Ayan , Kaule Falko R. , Nigbur Roland , Waite Alexander Q. , Baumgartner Florian J. , Stadler Jörg
Published: April 2016

Here we present an update of thestudyforrest(http://studyforrest.org) dataset that complements the previously released functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data for natural language processing with a new two-hour 3Tesla fMRI acquisition while 15 of the original participants were shown anaudio-visualversion of the stimulus motion picture. We demonstrate with two validation analyses that these new data support modeling specific properties of the complex natural stimulus, as well as a substantial within-subject BOLD response congruency in brain areas related to the processing of auditory inputs, speech, and narrative when compared to the existing fMRI data for audio-only stimulation. In addition, we provide participants’ eye gaze location as recorded simultaneously with fMRI, and an additional sample of 15 control participants whose eye gaze trajectories for the entire movie were recorded in a lab setting — to enable studies on attentional processes and comparative investigations on the potential impact of the stimulation setting on these processes.
The Impact of African and Brazilian Zika virus isolates on neuroprogenitors
Authors: Campanati Loraine , Higa Luiza M. , Delvecchio Rodrigo , Pezzuto Paula , Valadão Ana Luiza , Monteiro Fábio L. , Ventura Grasiella M. , Veríssimo Carla , Bispo De Filippis Ana M. , Aguiar Renato S. , Tanuri Amilcar
Published: April 2016

In the last few months, an overwhelming number of people have been exposed to the Zika virus (ZIKV) in South and Central America. Here we showed,in vitro, that a Brazilian isolate impacts more severely murine neuronal progenitors and neurons than the African strain MR766. We found that the Brazilian isolate more pronouncedly inhibits neurite extension from neurospheres, alters their differentiation potential and causes neurons to have less and shorter processes. Comparing both lineages using a panel of inflammatory cytokines, we showed, with human neuroblastoma cells, that ZIKV induces the production of several inflammatory and chemotactic cytokines and once again, the Brazilian isolate had a more significant impact. Although much more needs to be studied regarding the association of ZIKV infection and brain damage during development, our study sheds some light into the differences between African and American lineages and the mechanisms by which the virus may be affecting neurogenesis.
Predicting plant biomass accumulation from image-derived parameters
Authors: Chen Dijun , Shi Rongli , Pape Jean-Michel , Klukas Christian
Published: April 2016

Image-based high-throughput phenotyping technologies have been rapidly developed in plant science recently and they provide a great potential to gain more valuable information than traditionally destructive methods. Predicting plant biomass is regarded as a key purpose for plant breeders and ecologist. However, it is a great challenge to find a suitable model to predict plant biomass in the context of high-throughput phenotyping. In the present study, we constructed several models to examine the quantitative relationship between image-based features and plant biomass accumulation. Our methodology has been applied to three consecutive barley experiments with control and stress treatments. The results proved that plant biomass can be accurately predicted from image-based parameters using a random forest model. The high prediction accuracy based on this model, in particular the cross-experiment performance, is promising to relieve the phenotyping bottleneck in biomass measurement in breeding applications. The relative contribution of individual features for predicting biomass was further quantified, revealing new insights into the phenotypic determinants of plant biomass outcome. What’s more, the methods could also be used to determine the most important image-based features related to plant biomass accumulation, which would be promising for subsequent genetic mapping to uncover the genetic basis of biomass.

One-sentence Summary

We demonstrated that plant biomass can be accurately predicted from image-based parameters in the context of high-throughput phenotyping.

Footnotes

This work was supported by the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), the Robert Bosch Stiftung (32.5.8003.0116.0) and the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food (BEL, 15/12-13, 530-06.01-BiKo CHN) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, 0315958A and 031A053B). This research was furthermore enabled with support of the European Plant Phenotyping Network (EPPN, grant agreement no. 284443) funded by the FP7 Research Infrastructures Programme of the European Union.
Splicing-independent loading of TREX on nascent RNA is required for efficient expression of dual-strand piRNA clusters in Drosophila
Authors: Hur Junho K. , Luo Yicheng , Moon Sungjin , Ninova Maria , Marinov Georgi K. , Chung Yun D. , Aravin Alexei A.
Published: April 2016

The conserved THO/TREX (transcription/export) complex is critical for pre-mRNA processing and mRNA nuclear export. In metazoa, TREX is loaded on nascent RNA transcribed by RNA polymerase II in a splicing-dependent fashion; however, how TREX functions is poorly understood. Here we show that Thoc5 and other TREX components are essential for the biogenesis of piRNA, a distinct class of small noncoding RNAs that control expression of transposable elements (TEs) in the Drosophila germline. Mutations in TREX lead to defects in piRNA biogenesis, resulting in derepression of multiple TE families, gametogenesis defects, and sterility. TREX components are enriched on piRNA precursors transcribed from dual-strand piRNA clusters and colocalize in distinct nuclear foci that overlap with sites of piRNA transcription. The localization of TREX in nuclear foci and its loading on piRNA precursor transcripts depend on Cutoff, a protein associated with chromatin of piRNA clusters. Finally, we show that TREX is required for accumulation of nascent piRNA precursors. Our study reveals a novel splicing-independent mechanism for TREX loading on nascent RNA and its importance in piRNA biogenesis.
Sperm is epigenetically programmed to regulate gene transcription in embryos
Authors: Teperek Marta , Simeone Angela , Gaggioli Vincent , Miyamoto Kei , Allen George E. , Erkek Serap , Kwon Taejoon , Marcotte Edward M. , Zegerman Philip , Bradshaw Charles R. , Peters Antoine H.F.M. , Gurdon John B. , Jullien Jerome
Published: April 2016

For a long time, it has been assumed that the only role of sperm at fertilization is to introduce the male genome into the egg. Recently, ideas have emerged that the epigenetic state of the sperm nucleus could influence transcription in the embryo. However, conflicting reports have challenged the existence of epigenetic marks on sperm genes, and there are no functional tests supporting the role of sperm epigenetic marking on embryonic gene expression. Here, we show that sperm is epigenetically programmed to regulate embryonic gene expression. By comparing the development of sperm- and spermatid-derived frog embryos, we show that the programming of sperm for successful development relates to its ability to regulate transcription of a set of developmentally important genes. During spermatid maturation into sperm, these genes lose H3K4me2/3 and retain H3K27me3 marks. Experimental removal of these epigenetic marks at fertilization de-regulates gene expression in the resulting embryos in a paternal chromatin-dependent manner. This demonstrates that epigenetic instructions delivered by the sperm at fertilization are required for correct regulation of gene expression in the future embryos. The epigenetic mechanisms of developmental programming revealed here are likely to relate to the mechanisms involved in transgenerational transmission of acquired traits. Understanding how parental experience can influence development of the progeny has broad potential for improving human health.
Crystal Violet Assay for Determining Viability of Cultured Cells
Authors: Feoktistova Maria , Geserick Peter , Leverkus Martin
Published: April 2016

Adherent cells detach from cell culture plates during cell death. This characteristic can be used for the indirect quantification of cell death and to determine differences in proliferation upon stimulation with death-inducing agents. One simple method to detect maintained adherence of cells is the staining of attached cells with crystal violet dye, which binds to proteins and DNA. Cells that undergo cell death lose their adherence and are subsequently lost from the population of cells, reducing the amount of crystal violet staining in a culture. This protocol describes a quick and reliable screening method that is suitable for the examination of the impact of chemotherapeutics or other compounds on cell survival and growth inhibition. However, characterization of the cause of reduced crystal violet staining requires additional methods detailed elsewhere.
Versatile variable temperature insert at the DEIMOS beamline forin situelectrical transport measurements
Authors: Joly L. , Muller B. , Sternitzky E. , Faullumel J.-G. , Boulard A. , Otero E. , Choueikani F. , Kappler J.-P. , Studniarek M. , Bowen M. , Ohresser P.
Published: April 2016

The design and the first experiments are described of a versatile cryogenic insert used for its electrical transport capabilities. The insert is designed for the cryomagnet installed on the DEIMOS beamline at the SOLEIL synchrotron dedicated to magnetic characterizations through X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) measurements. This development was spurred by the multifunctional properties of novel materials such as multiferroics, in which, for example, the magnetic and electrical orders are intertwined and may be probed using XAS. The insert thus enables XAS toin situprobe this interplay. The implementation of redundant wiring and careful shielding also enables studies on operating electronic devices. Measurements on magnetic tunnel junctions illustrate the potential of the equipment toward XAS studies ofin operandoelectronic devices.
Expanding the usage of the Source Function to experimental electron densities
Authors: Overgaard Jacob
Published: April 2016

The Source Function provides unique information about chemical bonding in the solid state, from theory as well as from experiment. It is now established that the concept of electronic delocalization in aromatic systems can be accurately studied using X-ray derived electron densities, and even more importantly the contributions are transferable between similar systems.
Distorting effects of competition authority’s performance measurement: the case of Russia
Authors: Avdasheva Svetlana , Golovanova Svetlana , Korneeva Dina
Published: April 2016

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to explain the impact of the incentives of competition authorities concerning antitrust enforcement on the structure of enforcement and understanding of the substantive norms and welfare standards in Russia using case-level evidence.

Design/methodology/approach

– The study is based on a unique data set of appeals to infringement decisions in 2008-2012. Quantitative and qualitative analyses are applied to derive an understanding of the targets of competition policy in the practice of enforcement.

Findings

– The analysis reveals that the majority of cases would never be investigated under conventional understanding of the goals of antitrust enforcement. It is also shown that antitrust authorities tend to investigate cases that require less input but result in infringement decisions with lower probability of being annulled and lower cost to proceed. Structure of enforcement is skewed toward cases where harm serves as independent and sufficient evidence of competition law violation.

Originality/value

– The results show that it is dangerous to motivate authority and public servants based either on number of tasks completed or completeness of tasks when they are heterogeneous in terms of difficulty and where easier ones provide lower positive effects on welfare. Judicial reviews may poorly contribute to performance measurement under a discretionary choice of enforcement targets.
Integrating public service motivation and self-determination theory
Authors: Andrews Christina
Published: April 2016

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to present a framework integrating theoretical insights, empirical research and practical advice emerging from public service motivation (PSM) and self-determination theory (SDT). It aims at demonstrating that, while PSM shows the relevance of public values for motivation, SDT explains how context affects it. Taking the two theoretical approaches as complementary to one another and by pointing out their “static” and “dynamic” features, the framework provides a theoretical foundation for organizational practices aimed at enhancing motivation in the public services.

Design/methodology/approach

– The framework is based on a review of PSM and SDT theoretical concepts and empirical studies; the analysis examines the implications and contributions of each approach to the understanding of motivation in the public services.

Findings

– The paper demonstrates that PSM and SDT are complementary theoretical approaches and that this complementarity can provide clearer guidance to practitioners and widen the understanding of motivation in the public services.

Research limitations/implications

– The framework considers only a few features pertaining motivation in the public services, such as public values, basic needs satisfaction, prosocial behaviour and socialization. Further research should explore additional factors.

Practical implications

– The framework provides an explanation of why some practices are likely to enhance motivation in the public services, while others are likely to deplete it.

Originality/value

– The framework does not limit itself to proposing the theoretical integration of PSM and SDT, but connects this integration to organizational practices.
Effect of UV-Radiation on Extraction and Dyeing of Cotton Fabric with Pomegranate Rind
Authors: Perveen Sajida , Ahmad Bhatti Ijaz , Adeel Shahid
Published: April 2016

Pomegranate (Punica granatum), which contains tannins as the main colouring component in the rind that imparts a yellowish brown colour on cotton fabric, has been selected and extracted through the use of water, methanol and ethanol. For the extraction of dye, irradiated and non-irradiated rind powders are used. The dyeing parameters, such as temperature, pH, time and material to liquid ratio (M:L) has been studied by the CIE Lab system for the optimization of dyeing conditions. Dyeing, irradiated and non-irradiated cotton fabrics have been used in order to see the effect of UV radiation on the colour strength of dye. Fastness properties, such as colour fastness to light, washing and rubbing (dry and wet), have been studied in accordance to ISO standard methods. It is found that irradiated cotton fabric not only improves the colour strength of dye, but also the colour fastness properties of irradiated cotton fabric.
Forecasting of Cotton Yarn Properties Using Intelligent Machines
Authors: Ghosh Anindya
Published: April 2016

An intelligence machine is a computer program that can learn from experience, i.e. modifies its processing on the basis of newly acquired information and thereafter makes decisions in a rightfully sensible manner when presented with inputs. Examples of such machine learning systems are artificial neural networks (ANNs), support vector machines (SVMs), fuzzy logic, evolutionary computation, etc. The prediction of cotton yarn properties from constituent fibre properties is quite significant from a technological point of view. Regardless of the relentless efforts made by researchers, the exact relationship between fibre and yarn properties has not yet been decisively recognized. The intelligence machine, which is a potent data-modeling tool in capturing complex input-output relationships, seems to be the right approach to decipher the fibre-to-yarn relationship. In this work, various cotton yarns properties, such as strength, elongation, evenness and hairiness, have been predicted from fibre properties by using different intelligence models, such as ANNs, SVMs and adaptive neuro fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS). A k-fold cross validation technique is applied to assess the expected generalization accuracies of these models. A comparison of the prediction efficiencies among these models shows that the performances of the SVM model has better accuracies than the other models.
Comparative Analysis of Regression and Artificial Neural Network Models for the Prediction of Yarn Hairiness
Authors: Majumdar Abhijit
Published: April 2016

Hairiness is a very important yarn quality parameter for high speed weaving. This paper presents a comparative analysis of two modeling methodologies for the prediction of ring and rotor yarn hairiness. Cotton fibre properties measured by a high volume instrument
(HVI) and yarn count have been used as inputs for artificial neural network (ANN) and linear regression models. The prediction accuracy for both of the models is found to be good as the correlation coefficient is higher than 0.92 and mean absolute error is less than 4%. However, ANN models have an edge over the regression model particularly for ring yarn hairiness prediction. The importance of the cotton fibre properties on yarn hairiness has also been analysed by the developed ANN and regression models. For ring spun yarns, the ranking of cotton fibre properties given by the ANN and regression models are generally in agreement although some disparities exist in the ranking of length properties. Both models yield almost identical ranking of cotton fibre properties for rotor yarn hairiness.
Simulation of Small Filament Bundles Breaking Process
Authors: Militký Jiří , Křemenáková Dana.
Published: April 2016

The strength of fibers and fibrous bundles is a very important parameter, especially for industrial applications of textile structures. It is possible to use simulations, particularly for smaller samples. This paper describes the bundle strength of PET filaments from a statistical point of view. The small bundles from 2 till 10 filaments were tested. The simulation-based bundle breaking process combined with bootstrapping was used for estimating bundle strength.
Optical Bend Sensing for Wearable Goniometry: Exploring the Comfort/Accuracy Tradeoff
Authors: Dunne Lucy E.
Published: April 2016

This paper explores some initial variables that impact the sensor signal and accuracy of a garment-integrated bend sensor used to measure the flexion and extension of the knee. An optical fiber bend sensor has been evaluated in garments of 6 sizes on an animatronic running mannequin. The resulting sensor signals are compared for correlation, signal-to-noise ratio, signal variability, and morphology. Subsequently, a knee-brace application is evaluated on the same signal parameters in repetitive donning and doffing trials for consistency between trials. The results show the impact of these variables on the amplitude, variability, and noise in the sensor signal.
Active Electronic Fibers and Woven Logic
Authors: Hamedi Mahiar , Inganäs Olle
Published: April 2016

Giving textiles electronic functions while retaining the flexibility of weaves would open up new avenues for already mature textile technology. We review recent developments in this field, focusing on the combination of electronic polymers and textile fibers to make microstructured electronic systems on fiber platforms/weaves. The combinatorial possibilities inherent to crossing fibers in weaves may be exploited for large scale construction of many devices, with appropriate addressing and signaling, in processes derived from classical textile technology. The electronic elements realized on these substrates include electrochemical and field effect transistors, photovoltaic devices, and
light emitting devices. We discuss the requirements for embedding electronic systems into textile due to the geometrical flexibility of textile fibers, conductivity of wires and geometries of active devices in the form of fiber crossings.