bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Children's Geographies
Authors: Kraftl Peter , Horton John , Tucker Faith
Published: February 2014

Children’s geographies is a large and vibrant subdiscipline in human geography, which focuses on children and young people from birth to age twenty-five. The foundations of the subdiscipline are diverse, encompassing early studies of children’s play, identity and environmental cognition, and feminist studies of the family. The subdiscipline developed a distinct identity from the late 1990s onward, and research in this area has increased dramatically. Children’s geographers routinely draw on the central tenets of childhood studies: that childhood is a social construction, and that children are agents whose voices should be heard in research and societal decision making. The uniqueness of children’s geographies, however, lies in the centrality of space and place. Conceptually, this has meant attention to how social constructions of childhood are also spatial constructions. In other words, depending on context, certain spaces (schools, the home) may be constructed as being “for” children, whereas in others (such as the street), children may be deemed “out of place.” Similarly, children’s geographers argue that it is impossible to understand children’s agency without interrogating their experiences of place. Scholarship has tended to focus on the smaller scale and, particularly, the ways in which children negotiate their local neighborhoods. Thus, there are several recurring themes within the subdiscipline: how children often feel excluded from public spaces by adults yet seek to find niches in which to express themselves; how children negotiate rules and physical boundaries set by parents and other adults; how children hold important knowledge about their local spaces, often overlooked by adults; how children’s experiences of and access to particular places may be crosscut by identity categories (especially gender, ethnicity, dis/ability, and class); how children may participate (or not) in planning or design programs that affect their lives. Building on these central tenets and themes, scholars within the subdiscipline have developed a range of conceptual approaches to children’s emotions, embodiment, intergenerational relations, political agency, scale, and their interactions with environmental and nonhuman) processes and materialities. In turn, such work has informed developments in wider disciplines (particularly human geography and interdisciplinary childhood studies), ensuring that children’s geographies has become increasingly visible beyond the subdiscipline. It is also important to note that children’s geographies has always been an interdisciplinary endeavor, drawing scholars from a range of disciplinary, conceptual, and methodological backgrounds (most evident when examining tables of contents for the journal Children’s Geographies, cited under Journals).
Polish Cinema
Authors: Ostrowska Elzbieta
Published: February 2014

Poland’s turbulent history in the 20th century has been the most significant factor affecting the development of vernacular cinema. Until 1918, when Poland regained its independence after 123 years of partitions, Polish cinema did not exist as a separate national entity and thus one can only talk about cinematic practices occurring in Polish territories. Between 1918 and 1939 Polish cinema primarily developed popular forms, ranging from nationalistic melodramas to Yiddish musicals. The outbreak of World War II and the following occupation of Poland meant a cessation of Polish national cinema for six years. In 1945 a new model of state-supported and state-controlled cinema emerged. Responding to constantly changing political circumstances, Polish postwar cinema negotiated the potential of the space between utter ideological complicity and the desire to subvert the communist regime. Limited by political censorship, it often communicated with its audience in Aesopian language. Simultaneously, the authorities of the state-funded film industry occasionally supported certain cinematic experiments mainly to demonstrate the superiority of communist art over the bourgeois. They also enabled a popular cinema as long as it conveyed an ideological message supportive of the political system. The most significant achievements of Polish postwar cinema are, according to most film criticism, in a politically engaged art cinema represented at its best by Andrzej Wajda, Andrzej Munk, Agnieszka Holland, and Krzysztof Kieślowski. In consequence, other cinematic phenomena more closely linked with cinematic modernism as, for example, films by Wojciech Has, Grzegorz Królikiewicz, Tadeusz Konwicki, Jerzy Skolimowski, and Walerian Borowczyk, have been significantly marginalized within critical discourses both in Poland and abroad. The collapse of communism in 1989 caused a radical change in the whole system of film production, distribution, and exhibition. Instead of political censorship, filmmakers have since been subjected to the demands of the domestic film market now entirely open to Hollywood production. They responded to these changes in a twofold manner: the younger generation attempted to establish a vernacular model of popular cinema, whereas the elder wanted to use their newfound political freedom to address the previously repressed parts of national memory. As well as its historical and aesthetic specificity Polish cinema can also be located within the broader conceptual frameworks of central eastern European cinema or now postcommunist cinema.
Chris Marker
Authors: Jacobs Steven , Verdoodt Sofie
Published: February 2014

Chris Marker is a pseudonym of Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve (b. 1921, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France–d. 2012, Paris, France), a French director, screenwriter, photographer, editor, writer, and multimedia artist. A major figure in the history of both experimental and documentary film, Marker turned out to be a mythic artist, who is always elusive about his past—even his place of birth is highly disputed (Ulan Bator, Mongolia, and Belleville, Paris compete with Neuilly-sur-Seine). In addition, Marker was known to refuse interviews and not allow photographs to be taken of him (though these claims are not entirely accurate). After studying philosophy prior to World War II, an involvement in the French Resistance during the German occupation, and having joined the United States Air Force as a paratrooper, Marker emerged as an intellectual, journalist, writer, and photographer in Paris in the 1940s. Already he showed a particular interest in filmmaking and he eventually made his debut as a filmmaker in 1952 with a documentary of the Helsinki Olympic Games. Soon after, he collaborated with Alain Resnais on Les Statues meurent aussi—both Marker and Resnais became key members (next to Agnès Varda, Jean Rouch, and Marguerite Duras) of the so-called Rive Gauche group. From the 1950s onward, Marker made seminal documentary essay films such as Dimanche à Pékin, Lettre de Sibérie, and Le Joli Mai. In 1962, he became known internationally for the short La Jetée (The Pier), which consists of still photographs. After his involvement in collective and radical filmmaking for SLON and ISKRA in the period 1967–1974, Marker made Sans Soleil, his best-known and most widely seen essay film that combines documentary and fiction. Already interested in the interactions between various media from the beginning of his career, Marker also developed into a leading video and multimedia artist beginning in the 1980s.
European Television
Authors: Fickers Andreas
Published: February 2014

European television has a double connotation: it characterizes both the history and current existence of multiple television institutions and channels across Europe as well as the phenomenon of transnational, European television. Reaffirming the concept of Europe as “unity in diversity” and acknowledging the contested nature of Europe as a discursive character, both television and Europe can best be defined as projects that need to be continuously renegotiated and reinvented. Both “Europe” and “television” as concepts are constructed entities whose identities vary depending on the topic of inquiry and the roster of questions of those investigating the phenomena. Europe as a discursive construction has been instrumentalized from a multitude of angles (historical, religious, geographical, political, and cultural), and television has been approached as being essentially a technology, an institution, an art, or simply a form of popular entertainment. Historically speaking, the first regular television services started before World War II in Germany (1935) and Great Britain, but the late 1950s and early 1960s marked the real take off of television as a mass medium in most European countries. Transnational television in Europe started with the launch of Eurovision, the organization for the exchange of television programs within the European Broadcasting Union. Until the advent of the so-called dual broadcasting systems in the 1980s, most European countries had public service television institutions, financed by broadcasting fees. The start of commercial television and the advent of satellite broadcasting in the 1980s radically changed the European television landscape. This bibliography aims at offering guidance to the technical, economic, political, and cultural factors that shaped European television since its emergence in the late 1930s. It tries to pay equal attention to both important transnational developments and to specificities of national television cultures.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Authors: Bird Robert
Published: February 2014

Andrei Tarkovsky (b. 1932–d. 1986) was the most important director in postwar Soviet art cinema and one of the most influential auteurs in world cinema of the 1960s–1980s. After completing several student films, most notably Steamroller and Violin (1960), Tarkovsky leapt to prominence in 1962 with his first feature, Ivan’s Childhood, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival that year. His next feature, the epic-length Andrei Rublev, was completed in 1966 but shown (after enforced edits) only in 1969, at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI prize; it was released domestically only in 1971. Each of his three films of the 1970s—Solaris (1972), Mirror (1975), and Stalker (1979)—was welcomed internationally but led to new complications for Tarkovsky’s position in the Soviet film system: Solaris (based on a science fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem) was released only after changes enforced by the censors, the autobiographical and enigmatic Mirror was given only limited release, and Stalker (based on a science-fiction novel by Arkadii and Boris Strugatsky) had to be reshot after Tarkovsky controversially determined that much of the original footage had been spoiled. After filming the documentary short Tempo di viaggio (1980) with Tonino Guerra, Tarkovsky returned to Italy to make Nostalgia (1982) as a joint Soviet-Italian production. Remaining abroad without official permission, essentially as a defector, Tarkovsky directed Sacrifice (1986) in Sweden, completing the editing from his sickbed in a Paris clinic, where he died from lung cancer on 29 December 1986. Throughout his career, Tarkovsky also worked in other media, experimenting with Polaroid photography and staging productions on the radio (in 1965), in the theater (Hamlet in 1976), and in the Royal Opera House (Boris Godunov in 1983). In exile from the USSR, Tarkovsky also reedited his articles and interviews (dating as far back as 1962) into a book, known in English as Sculpting in Time, one of the best-known monographs on filmmaking by a major director. Long, slow and brooding, Tarkovsky’s seven feature films are broadly admired among cinephiles, and his charismatic figure has attracted a devoted and sometimes fanatical following, which has been known to idolize him as a spiritual teacher. Writing about Tarkovsky has sometimes been colored by this uncritical adulation, but his films are increasingly being analyzed by historians and interpretive critics for their breathtakingly original technique, poignant imagery, and continuing influence on other filmmakers.
Disability
Authors: Norden Martin
Published: February 2014

The study of moving-image representations of persons with disabilities (PWDs) is a young and vibrant subset of cinema and media studies, itself a relatively youthful field. The vast majority of books and articles on the subject were published in the 1990s or later and reflect a growing awareness of—indeed, hinge on the concept of—disability as a social construct. The research into film and disability is inextricably connected to the development of another interdisciplinary field of inquiry: disability studies, which emerged from the disability rights activism of the 1960s and 1970s and a desire to address concerns about ableist prejudice, discrimination, and indifference. Inspired to some extent by the developing fields of women’s studies and various minority studies (e.g., African American, Native American, queer), disability studies was hindered in its growth by the decades-long dominance of a certain way of thinking about disability called the medical model: the widespread, retrograde belief that disability is primarily a pathological problem to be overcome, not a socially constructed identity factor. With the establishment of the Society for Disability Studies in 1982, the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, and other key developments, however, the field matured significantly. University-level courses and scholarly journals dedicated to disability studies slowly but steadily increased across the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries during this time. The field reached a milestone in 1993 when the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez hosted the first scholarly conference devoted to disability studies in the arts and humanities, and it arrived at another in 1998 when the University of Illinois at Chicago established the first PhD program in disability studies in the United States. The earliest studies that examined the construction of disability in moving-image media were quantitative in nature and published in old-line medical-model journals. They were largely the output of a particularly industrious scholar named E. Keith Byrd. Alone or, more often, in collaboration with a colleague, Byrd published a series of such studies during the late 1970s and 1980s. Bearing such titles as “Feature Films and Disability” and “Disability in Full-Length Feature Films” and appearing in such journals as Journal of Rehabilitation, International Journal of Rehabilitation Research, and Rehabilitation Literature, Byrd’s articles tended to be brief, numbers-heavy, and laced with less-than-telling insights. (Among the observations in one such study were “that the film industry does utilize a variety of disabilities in its dramatizations” and “that disability is not totally ignored by the film industry.”) His efforts marked a start, however, and the following studies pick up where Byrd’s work leaves off.
David Cronenberg
Authors: Mathijs Ernest
Published: February 2014

David Cronenberg (b. 1943) is a filmmaker from Toronto, Canada. Between 1966 and 2012 he directed twenty-one feature films. He also wrote one novel and directed short films, episodes of television shows, and commercials. Cronenberg is regarded as the best-known filmmaker from Canada, and one of the most accomplished auteur-directors working today. The main theme of his films is the physical revolt of the human body (through disease, trauma, and mutation) against attempts to capture it in rational terms. Cronenberg’s films have often attracted controversy and censorship, especially during the 1970s and 1980s when he was associated with a wave of “body-horror.” This affiliation earned him the nickname “Baron of Blood.” Since the 1990s, Cronenberg’s oeuvre has gained respect and prestige, especially after he started adapting literary works. Even then, some controversy remained. Cronenberg first became an object of scholarly study in Piers Handling’s book The Shape of Rage: The Films of David Cronenberg (Handling 1983, cited under Anthologies), and, ever since, his films have attracted a steady stream of academic attention. By and large, the career and films of Cronenberg are discussed through three perspectives: (1) as a form of cinema aesthetics, (2) as an oeuvre addressing and expressing social and cultural themes, and (3) as a body of films that explore political and philosophical issues of the contemporary age. The first perspective contains discussions of Cronenberg’s films as part of the horror genre (and the subgenre of the visceral body horror film in particular) as well as studies of his films as “literary cinema.” It also includes most studies of the use of special effects in Cronenberg’s films. The methods of analysis most commonly employed under this perspective are formalist, textual, and comparative analysis. The second perspective consists of discussions of Cronenberg’s films in relation to their cultural contexts, most often as a kind of Canadian cinema or as a kind of cinema that has attracted moral commentary and censorship. The method of analysis most frequently used in this approach is a combination of reception study and cultural analysis. The third perspective studies Cronenberg’s films with respect to how they explore, and are reflective of, ideas and philosophical issues that circulate in the Western world today. The method most often used in this perspective is that of post-structuralist analysis. Across these three perspectives, one remarkable characteristic stands out: the almost unanimous acceptance by scholars of Cronenberg’s own interpretation of his films. A highly articulate speaker, Cronenberg has commented eagerly and eloquently on his films. This characteristic trait has had a significant impact on how academics have tended to study Cronenberg’s films, namely as a more-or-less unified body of work of which the author’s own vision equals the truth.
Serpentine Soils
Authors: Rajakaruna Nishanta , Boyd Robert S.
Published: February 2014

Serpentine soils are weathered products of a range of ultramafic rocks composed of ferromagnesian silicates. Serpentine more accurately refers to a group of minerals, including antigorite, chrysotile, and lizardite, in hydrothermally altered ultramafic rocks. Common ultramafic rock types include peridotites (dunite, wehrlite, harzburgite, lherzolite) and the secondary alteration products formed by their hydration within the Earth’s crust, including serpentinite, the primary source of serpentine soil. Serpentine soils are generally deficient in plant essential nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and sulfur; have a calcium-to-magnesium (Ca:Mg) molar ratio of less than 1; and have elevated levels of heavy metals such as nickel, cobalt, and chromium. Although physical features of serpentine soils can vary considerably from site to site and within a site, serpentine soils are often found in open, steep landscapes with substrates that are generally shallow and rocky, often with a reduced capacity for moisture retention. Due to the intense selective pressure generated by such stressful edaphic conditions, serpentine soils promote speciation and the evolution of serpentine endemism, contributing to unique biotas worldwide, including floras with high rates of endemism and species with disjunct distributions. The biota of serpentine soils has contributed greatly to the development of ecological and evolutionary theory, as well as to the study of the genetics of adaptation and speciation. Plants growing on serpentine soils also provide genetic material for phytoremediation and phytomining operations. Habitats with serpentine soils are undergoing drastic changes due to ever-expanding development, deforestation, mining for heavy metals and asbestos, exotic-species invasions, climate change, and atmospheric deposition of previously limiting nutrients such as nitrogen. Such changes can have drastic impacts on serpentine floras and affect bacteria, fungi, and fauna associated with serpentine plants and soils. Habitats with serpentine soils provide ample opportunities for conservation- and restoration-oriented research directed at finding ways to better manage these biodiversity hotspots.
Franz Rosenzweig
Authors: Mendes-Flohr Paul
Published: February 2014

A philosopher of religion, Franz Rosenzweig (b. 1886–d. 1929) is most prominently associated with the renaissance of Jewish religious thought that took place in Germany in the years just prior to and especially in the wake of the First World War. Both his life and his thought mark the passage from a studied assimilation to a reaffirmation of a distinctive Jewish cultural and religious identity, a process that entailed a reevaluation of the presuppositions of modern German philosophy. This intensive review of the sources of genuine knowledge yielded what Rosenzweig called a “New Thinking,” which restores to the center of the quest for truth the living God, manifest through revelation. Grounded in a belief in divine revelation as a historical event, whose underlying experience of God’s address is a continuous existential possibility, the New Thinking accordingly conceives of the speech act as the principal organon of truth. Whereas Western philosophy from the pre-Socratics to the present has been guided by reason as the preeminent means to gain access to timeless and universal truth, the New Thinking regards truth, both divine and human, to be revealed through an intersubjective dialogue that takes place in the matrix of concrete time and place in which individuals—specific individuals, each with unique biographies—live their lives. This radical revision of Western thought was accompanied by and refracted through Rosenzweig’s revisiting his ancestral religious tradition, which his family had largely abandoned. The resulting revalorization of Judaism as quintessentially embodied in its liturgical calendar, traditional ritual practice, and sacramental study of religious texts also led Rosenzweig to affirm the Christian Church as born of a covenant equally valid to that which God made with the People of Israel. Indeed, the two covenants complement one another in working to realize God’s Heilsplan, the unfolding of redemption through human history.
Opium Trade
Authors: Baumler Alan
Published: February 2014

Chinese history textbooks begin the modern period of Chinese history at the First Opium War (1839–1842). This is not surprising, since opium was the most important commodity integrating China into global markets and an important part of China’s modern commercial transformation. Purging China of opium became one of the great projects of the modernizing states of the twentieth century, and the “opium plague” was one of the most important ways that foreigners explained Chinese backwardness and Chinese explained national humiliation. Much work has been done on the opium trade and the role of opium in Chinese nation-building. This literature has been dominated by discussions of drug suppression and the role of opium in Chinese state-making, especially for the period after 1907, when China was heavily influenced by new ideas about addiction coming from the West. The most recent scholarship has been influenced by the global literature on drug foods and changing meanings of drug consumption.
May Fourth Movement
Authors: Wang Edward Q.
Published: February 2014

The May Fourth Movement of 1919 was a nationalist mass movement, considered by many as one of the most important events in Chinese history. During the May Fourth era (1915–1925), Chinese intellectuals waged the New Culture Movement, questioning the relevance and validity of the Confucian tradition while searching for new ideas from abroad. Marxism and Communism—together with liberalism, anarchism, pragmatism, Bergsonism, etc.—entered China. Thanks to the direct assistance of the Communist International, the Chinese Communist Party was founded in 1921. Several decades later, the Communist Party founded the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. Given its multifarious and multileveled significance, the May Fourth Movement sparked interest among scholars of different politico-cultural backgrounds, almost immediately from its occurrence into the early twenty-first century. As such, it has generated a large body of literature, with divergent views, positions, and opinions. From the 1920s to the mid-1930s, most scholars evaluated the May Fourth Movement positively, hailing it as a new age in Chinese history. This evaluation has still been held by PRC scholars who emphasize how the May Fourth Movement helped promote Communism in the country. For a long time, the May Fourth Movement was (and still is in some texts) considered a watershed moment among PRC educators by which they divided the course of Chinese history in modern times into two subperiods: “modern history” or jindaishi近代史 (1840–1919) and “contemporary history” or xiandaishi现代史 (1919–present). By comparison, non-Marxist scholars appeared slightly less enthusiastic about the historical role of the movement, although many of them still recognized its importance in reshaping the Chinese attitude toward their tradition. By downplaying the May Fourth’s connection with Communism, non-Marxist scholars focused on how the New Culture Movement helped advance Chinese modernity in that era. In more recent years, thanks to the rising interest in sociocultural history, some historians working in Western academies attempt to question—or “decenter”—the May Fourth’s epochal importance in presaging the development of modern Chinese history. In the Chinese-speaking world, scholars have made similar attempts to explore the social impacts of the May Fourth Movement. However, few have shed doubts about its historical significance. The literature on the May Fourth Movement is still expanding at a rapid pace, thanks to the number of works generated at many conferences, symposiums, and workshops held on major anniversaries of the May Fourth Movement across the Taiwan Strait.
History of Evolutionary Thought, 1860–1925
Authors: Allen Garland E.
Published: February 2014

The reaction to the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was as varied as the sources from which it emanated. Responses ranged from those of naturalists, physical scientists, and religious leaders and theologians to social scientists, political activists, historians, and even artists from George Eliot and Fyodor Dostoyevsky to Richard Wagner. Darwin’s work was as controversial as he feared it would be, so he left defending it in the scientific world, to his “bulldog” Thomas Henry Huxley. The initial reaction, dating between the years 1860 and 1882 (Darwin’s death), included numerous scientific critiques, some of which were highly favorable, even if not agreeing with Darwin in all details. Others, however, attacked virtually every aspect of Darwin’s theory from his concept of heredity to his insistence on gradualism and including his vagueness about how speciation would actually come about. In addition, the immediate reaction by theologians was often quite virulent, and it has remained to plague evolutionary theory down to the present. The sociological spin-off into what has loosely been called “social Darwinism” and other evolutionary views of history was also immediate and highly influential. Few historians or social scientists were able to ignore the impact of Darwin’s ideas on their field, however much some may have wanted to resist it. The general period in the history of Darwinism from 1860 to 1925, then, is one marked by numerous controversies, even as many, at least in the scientific realm, began to reach some sort of resolution by the time of the so-called evolutionary synthesis of the later 1920s and 1930s. This article will focus on the period leading up to, but not including, the synthesis and beyond.
Hydrogenispora ethanolica gen. nov., sp. nov., an anaerobic carbohydrate-fermenting bacterium from anaerobic sludge
Authors: Liu Yi , Qiao Jiang-Tao , Yuan Xian-Zheng , Guo Rong-Bo , Qiu Yan-Ling
Published: February 2014

An anaerobic, spore-forming, ethanol-hydrogen-coproducing bacterium, designated LX-BT, was isolated from an anaerobic sludge treating herbicide wastewater. Cells of strain LX-BTwere non-motile rods (0.3–0.5×3.0–18.0 µm). Spores were terminal with a bulged sporangium. Growth occurred at 20–50 °C (optimum 37–45 °C), pH 5.0–8.0 (optimum pH 6.0–7.7) and 0–2.5 % (w/v) NaCl. The strain could grow fermentatively on glucose, maltose, arabinose, fructose, xylose, ribose, galactose, mannose, raffinose, sucrose, pectin, starch, glycerol, fumarate, tryptone and yeast extract. The major end-products of glucose fermentation were acetate, ethanol and hydrogen. Yeast extract was not required but stimulated growth. Nitrate, sulfate, thiosulfate, elemental sulfur, sulfite, anthraquinone-2,6-disulfonate, fumarate and Fe (III) nitrilotriacetate were not used as terminal electron acceptors. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 56.1 mol%. The major cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C15 : 0, iso-C14 : 0and C16 : 0. The most abundant polar lipids of strain LX-BTwere diphosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylglycerol. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that it belongs to an as-yet-unidentified taxon at the order- or class-level (OPB54) within the phylumFirmicutes, showing 86.5 % sequence similarity to previously described species of theDesulfotomaculumcluster. The nameHydrogenispora ethanolicagen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed to accommodate strain LX-BT( = DSM 25471T = JCM 18117T = CGMCC 1.5175T) as the type strain.
Mucilaginibacter auburnensis sp. nov., isolated from a plant stem
Authors: Kämpfer Peter , Busse Hans-Jürgen , McInroy John A. , Glaeser Stefanie P.
Published: February 2014

A yellow-pigmented, Gram-negative, rod-shaped, non-spore-forming bacterium (strain JM-1070T) was isolated as a presumptive endophyte from internal stem tissue of a healthy corn stem. Phylogenetic analyses based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence placed strain JM-1070T in the monophyletic cluster of the genus

Mucilaginibacter

, with closest affiliation to the type strains of

Mucilaginibacter composti

(98 % similarity) and

Mucilaginibacter calamicampi

(97.2 %). 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to type strains of other species of the genus

Mucilaginibacter

was 93.4–96.0 %. DNA–DNA hybridizations between strain JM-1070T and the type strains

M. composti

LMG 23497T and

M. calamicampi

CCUG 63418T showed low relatedness values of 13 % (reciprocal 18 %) and 52 % (reciprocal 54.4 %). Major respiratory quinones were menaquinones MK-6 and MK-7. The predominant fatty acids (>15 %) were iso-C15 : 0, iso-C15 : 0 2-OH/C16 : 1ω7c (measured as summed feature 3) and iso-C17 : 0 3-OH. Several other iso-branched and hydroxylated fatty acids were detected. The polar lipid profile was composed of the major components phosphatidylethanolamine and an unidentified aminophospholipid. The polyamine pattern contained predominantly sym-homospermidine. Characterization by 16S rRNA gene sequencing, physiological parameters and polyamine, ubiquinone, polar lipid and fatty acid compositions revealed that strain JM-1070T represents a novel species of the genus

Mucilaginibacter

. For this reason, we propose the name Mucilaginibacter auburnensis sp. nov., with the type strain JM-1070T ( = CIP 110694T = LMG 28078T).
Roseivivax
roseus sp. nov., an alphaproteobacterium isolated from a solar saltern soil sample
Authors: Zhang Yu-Qin , Lee Jae-Chan , Park Dong-Jin , Lu Xin-Xin , Mou Xiao-Zhen , Kim Chang-Jin
Published: February 2014

A pink, Gram-stain-negative, motile, halotolerant bacterium with subpolar flagellum, designated strain BH87090T, was isolated from a saline soil sample collected from the south-west coastal area of South Korea (125° 58′ 58.08″ E 34° 45′ 37.32″ N). The isolate formed opaque pink to red colonies on marine agar plates at 30 °C. The polar lipid profile consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, sulfoquinovosyl diacylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine and one unidentified phospholipid. The sole respiratory quinone was ubiquinone-10 (Q-10). The major cellular fatty acids were C18 : 1ω7c, C19 : 0 cyclo ω8c, C16 : 0 and 11-methyl C18 : 1ω7c. The genomic DNA G+C content was 61.8 mol%. These chemotaxonomic characteristics were all consistent with specific properties of the genus

Roseivivax

. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that the isolate affiliated to the cluster with members of the genus

Roseivivax

in the

Roseobacter

clade, which suggested that the strain belonged to the genus

Roseivivax

. However, the low 16S rRNA gene similarities (93.5–95.3 %) of strain BH87090T with all the members of the genus

Roseivivax

indicated that it represented a novel species of the genus

Roseivivax

. On the basis of phenotypic and genotypic data, strain BH87090T should be classified as a novel species of the genus

Roseivivax

. The name Roseivivax roseus sp. nov. is proposed, with strain BH87090T ( = DSM 23042T = KCTC 22650T) as the type strain.
Metabolism of 2-hydroxy-1-naphthoic acid and naphthalene via gentisic acid by distinctly different sets of enzymes in Burkholderia sp. strain BC1
Authors: Chowdhury Piyali Pal , Sarkar Jayita , Basu Soumik , Dutta Tapan K.
Published: February 2014

Burkholderiasp. strain BC1, a soil bacterium, isolated from a naphthalene balls manufacturing waste disposal site, is capable of utilizing 2-hydroxy-1-naphthoic acid (2H1NA) and naphthalene individually as the sole source of carbon and energy. To deduce the pathway for degradation of 2H1NA, metabolites isolated from resting cell culture were identified by a combination of chromatographic and spectrometric analyses. Characterization of metabolic intermediates, oxygen uptake studies and enzyme activities revealed that strain BC1 degrades 2H1NA via 2-naphthol, 1,2,6-trihydroxy-1,2-dihydronaphthalene and gentisic acid. In addition, naphthalene was found to be degraded via 1,2-dihydroxy-1,2-dihydronaphthalene, salicylic acid and gentisic acid, with the putative involvement of the classicalnagpathway. Unlike most other Gram-negative bacteria, metabolism of salicylic acid in strain BC1 involves a dual pathway, via gentisic acid and catechol, with the latter being metabolized by catechol 1,2-dioxygenase. Involvement of a non-oxidative decarboxylase in the enzymic transformation of 2H1NA to 2-naphthol indicates an alternative catabolic pathway for the bacterial degradation of hydroxynaphthoic acid. Furthermore, the biochemical observations on the metabolism of structurally similar compounds, naphthalene and 2-naphthol, by similar but different sets of enzymes in strain BC1 were validated by real-time PCR analyses.
A shutoff and exonuclease mutant of murine gammaherpesvirus-68 yields infectious virus and causes RNA loss in type I interferon receptor knockout cells
Authors: Sheridan Victoria , Polychronopoulos Louise , Dutia Bernadette M. , Ebrahimi Bahram
Published: February 2014

Significant loss of RNA followed by severely reduced cellular protein pool, a phenomenon termed host shutoff, is associated with a number of lytic virus infections and is a critical player in viral pathogenesis. Until recently, viral DNA exonucleases were associated only with processing of viral genomic DNA and its encapsidation. However, recent observations have identified host shutoff and exonuclease function for the highly conserved viral exonucleases in γ-herpesviruses, which include Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, Epstein–Barr virus and the mouse model murine gammaherpesvirus-68, also referred to as MHV-68. In this study, we show that although ablation of the MHV-68 exonuclease ORF37 caused a restrictive phenotype in WT IFN-α/β receptor-positive cells such as NIH 3T3, lack of ORF37 was tolerated in cells lacking the IFN-α/β receptor: the ORF37Stop virus was capable of forming infectious particles and caused loss of mRNA in IFN-α/β receptor knockout cells. Moreover, ORF37Stop virus was able to establish lytic infection in the lungs of mice lacking the IFN-α/β receptor. These observations provide evidence that lytic MHV-68 infection and subsequent loss of mRNA can take place independently of ORF37. Moreover, efficient growth of ORF37Stop virus also identifies a role for this family of viral nucleases in providing a window of opportunity for virus growth by overcoming type I IFN-dependent responses.
Corrosion control of rusted carbon steel using hexametaphosphate and zinc sulfate in RO product water
Authors: Hu Jiayuan , Cao Shun'an , Xie Jianli , Yin Li
Published: February 2014

Purpose

– The purpose of this investigation was to study the effects of sodium hexametaphosphate and zinc sulfate on the corrosion control of rusted iron in reverse osmosis (RO) product water of seawater.

Design/methodology/approach

– The synergistic effects and inhibition effects of corrosion inhibitors on rusted carbon steel were studied using the weight-loss method, electrochemical tests and surface analysis techniques.

Findings

– The results indicated that sodium hexametaphosphate could partly suppress the corrosion of rusted steel, but zinc sulfate used alone had no inhibition effect. Hexametaphosphate and zinc sulfate showed a strong synergistic effect and the optimal ratio of two chemicals was 1:1. The inhibition efficiency appeared to increase with increasing inhibitor concentration and the ideal dosage of inhibitors was set at 20 mg/L, when chemical cost and inhibition efficiency were taken into account. Surface analysis results proved that this compound inhibitor could make the rust layer much more compact. The inhibitive mechanism was to combine with rust and form a protective film, which consisted of iron oxide, polyphosphate and Zn(OH)2.

Originality/value

– It was found that the compound inhibitor consisting of sodium hexametaphosphate and zinc sulfate had a good inhibitive effect on rusted iron in RO product water. The research results can provide theoretical guidelines for corrosion control of rusted pipes in power plants.
Corrosion behavior of ZHMn55-3-1 copper alloy in stagnant and flowing seawater with entrained sediment
Authors: Luo Yanan , Li Qizheng , Song Shizhe
Published: February 2014

Purpose

– The purpose of this investigation was to study the erosion-corrosion behavior of ZHMn55-3-1 copper alloy in seawater (flow velocity from 0 to 0.8 m/s, sediment content from 0 to 0.15 percent), to analyze the effects of the flow velocity and sediment content on the erosion-corrosion process.

Design/methodology/approach

– A simulated erosion-corrosion test system was set up. Weight loss determinations and electrochemical measurements (such as potentiostat square wave (PSW), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and potentiodynamic polarization tests) were used to study the erosion-corrosion behavior of ZHMn55-3-1 copper alloy in stagnant and flowing seawater with different sediment contents.

Findings

– Under the test conditions, ZHMn55-3-1 copper alloys had good corrosion resistance to stagnant clear seawater, while increasing the flow velocity and sediment content reduced the corrosion resistance of the material. The difference in the erosion-corrosion mechanism between flow velocity and sediment content was that the former affected both the cathode process and the anode process of electrochemical corrosion, while the latter essentially affected only the anode process.

Originality/value

– This paper explains the effects of flow velocity and sediment content on the erosion-corrosion behavior of ZHMn55-3-1 copper alloy in flowing seawater.
Free return trajectories or enmeshment? Some psychodynamic factors and thoughts on the role of social capital in the use of substituted cathinones (M-cats)
Authors: David Sweet Alistair
Published: February 2014

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the emergence of substituted cathinones or M-cat drugs (notably mephedrone and methylone) and their rapid proliferation of use, amongst drug users in the UK from 2009 onwards, signals changes in the habits, preferences and lifestyle choices made by certain drug users, whilst also indicating a pronounced increase in the levels of co-morbid mental health conditions experienced by another, yet often distinct, group of users.

Design/methodology/approach

– This latter group of users, it is suggested, tend to initiate use of psychoactive substances (including tobacco and alcohol) at a younger age. In addition, it is suggested, they often present to treatment and criminal justice services with a history of chronic childhood relational trauma, as a background against which severe patterns of drug abuse has evolved. In this light the lack of significant supplies of social capital, as a protective factor against the development of chronic drug use, is further considered in the paper that follows though a brief literature review and qualitative clinical case reports.

Findings

– Novel psychoactive substances ( Newcombe, 2013) appear so seductive, for a certain group of users, because they seem to provide a temporary form of cognitive and emotional anaesthesia, enabling users to self-medicate, often against experiences of profound psychological trauma and contemporary lives that are typically experienced as boring, hopeless and pointless. The euphoric effects of psycho-stimulants such as mephedrone are particularly appealing to individuals attempting to escape a subjective sense of daily dysphoria and may on this basis lead to, rather than recreational use, more persistent patterns of drug use. However, in contradistinction to this group of users, another recreational – mainly weekend leisure – group of users continues to evidence a voracious appetite for psycho-stimulant substances.

Originality/value

– It is suggested that this second group of users has been particularly influential in substitute displacement towards the emergence of legal highs, due to the poor quality and illegal status of street drugs such as cocaine, amphetamine sulphate and MDMA (ecstasy).
Patterns of use and perceptions of drug addicts in Greece about “shisha” (a new synthetic drug) at economic crisis era
Authors: Triantos Petros , Papanastasatos Gerasimos , Poulopoulos Charalampos , Zaxaropoulos Yiannis
Published: February 2014

Purpose

– This paper aims to research the prevalence of a new drug which appeared at the era of economic crisis in Greece, called “shisha.” Shisha, a rather cheap form of crystal meth, has spread fast among drug users in Greece with the deepening of the economic crisis. The present paper is concerned with the socio-demographic characteristics of drug users who choose this type of drug and reveals the conditions under which this drug is used. In addition, perceptions of drug users about the specific drug are also explored.

Design/methodology/approach

– In total, 148 drug users took part in this study. Of these 73 percent were men and 27 percent women. The average age of participants was approximately 37 years. All participants in the study were interviewed face-to-face on the basis of a structured brief questionnaire with closed and open-ended questions.

Findings

– The data suggests that the majority of drug users who use “shisha” are mainly heroin users (63.2 percent) and they use this new drug as a second choice to heroin. Shisha can be found in the center of Athens and it is usually smoked through a glass pipe. The cost for buying the drug is relatively low (two to three euros) and the drug is produced in small illegal labs. Most participants argued that shisha is linked to violent and aggressive behavior, loss of weight, insomnia, sexual arousal and a psychotic state that may cause death. The drug is made out of a form of crystal meth produced by amphetamines and liquid acids found in batteries liquids.

Practical implications

– This drug is mainly used by homeless drug users in the center of Athens. Its exact synthesis cannot be identified given the fact that drug users use various recipes to produce it. Taking the drug is extremely dangerous for the health of the users.

Originality/value

– Research of the use of a new drug linked to the economic crisis in Greece. Researchers in this paper approached street drug users who are highly unlikely to seek help from health or other types of treatment providers.
A retrospective analysis of auditing research (1975-2009)
Authors: C. Chan Kam , C. Chan Kam , Wong Hannah
Published: February 2014

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality of doctoral programs in terms of their faculty auditing research output as well as their effectiveness in training future auditing faculty.

Design/methodology/approach

– This paper presents a retrospective analysis of auditing research that appeared in five premier accounting journals (AOS, TAR, CAR, JAE, and JAR) during the time period 1975-2009.

Findings

– The authors offer several new insights. First, the authors provide rankings of accounting programs based on their faculty's research output as well as their graduates' research output. The rankings of auditing research are significantly different from those that are based on aggregated accounting research output. Second, the rankings are found to be skewed; due to the display of high concentrations of auditing research among the top auditing research programs. Third, the rankings have exhibited considerable changes over time, which suggest extreme competitions in maintaining the relative positions of the doctoral programs. Fourth, the authors detect a noticeable change in auditing research methodologies.

Practical implications

– The findings are useful to: new and job-seeking auditing doctorates in selecting academic appointments; potential doctoral students in identifying auditing graduate programs that best fit their career goals; university administrators in assessing their auditing faculty; and auditing scholars in positioning their journal outlets.

Originality/value

– The study extends the findings of the previous studies by focusing on auditing research publications in top journals over a long sample period. The authors also provide evidence of changes in research methodologies in auditing research as well as changes in rankings among different institutions in recent years.