bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
"Amazingly Indiscreet": The Plot to Capture Wilhelm II
Authors: McCall Jack H.
Published: April 2009

Following the Armistice and Kaiser Wilhelm II's abdication in November 1918, Allied and Associated Powers leaders grappled with the Central Powers' responsibility for "war guilt." Among those placing the blame squarely on the German Kaiser was a former U.S. senator, Colonel Luke Lea, who actively pursued an unsanctioned personal task: seizing Wilhelm as a war criminal. Recently discovered documentation sheds new light on Lea's mission to transport the Kaiser from a Dutch castle for a trial before the Paris Peace Conference. Lea's "amazingly indiscreet" plan complements and broadly compares to similar views shared by senior Allied leaders at the end of World War I.
Combined Operations, the Commandos, and Norway, 1941–1944
Authors: Mann Christopher
Published: April 2009

The Combined Operations organisation and British Army and Royal Marine Commandos conducted three large-scale raids against the Norwegian coast in 1941 and a series of smaller operations in 1942 and 1943. This article examines the reasons for the shifts in British raiding policy during this period and places the Norwegian raids in their wider strategic context. Although these raids had little material consequence and were conducted on the periphery of the main theatres of operations, they proved beneficial in terms of experience gained in triservice operations and the subsequent overcommitment of German resources to Norway in response.
The Shattered Mirror: What August Wilson Means and Willed to Mean
Authors: Burbank Sergei
Published: April 2009

This personal and analytical essay combines an appraisal of August Wilson's history cycle with one multi-racial actor's account of his career thus far in American theater. His struggles in navigating the rigid, outdated and mutually exclusive dual-racial structure provide an insight into Wilson's fundamental (mis)reading of American society. The paper argues that Wilson's dramatic genius will be more fully appreciated when the audience for his plays is less restricted by outdated racial thinking than audiences today. Combining personal anecdotes with quotations from Wilson's plays and interviews, this essay seeks to separate Wilson's political stance, which articulated a mutual irreversible antagonism between black and white America, from his nuanced portrayals of human relationships, arguing that the latter will make these plays last the test of time.
Putting Black Culture on Stage: August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle
Authors: Gantt Patricia M.
Published: April 2009

In "Putting Black Culture on Stage: August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle," Patricia M. Gantt offers an overview of Wilson's life and work, including his background, motivation, dramatic aesthetic, and themes. Taking each of the ten plays in the Pittsburgh Cycle in the order of its New York stage production, Gantt discusses the works' characters and recurring concerns. Throughout, she investigates Wilson's stated goal of drawing on black culture-in all its sacred and secular particularities-to create art. Her critique aims at suggesting possible fields of future inquiry for teachers and scholars, and assesses Wilson's numerous contributions to American dramatic tradition.
Framing African American Cultural Identity: The Bookends Plays in August Wilson's 10-Play Cycle
Authors: Shannon Sandra G.
Published: April 2009

In various interviews, August Wilson admitted that a "special relationship" exists between his so-called bookend plays: Gem of the Ocean (set in 1904) and Radio Golf (set in 1997). In writing both, his mission was to ". . . build an umbrella under which the rest of the plays can sit . . . a bridge. The subject matter of these two plays is going to be very similar and connected thematically," he explained further, "meaning that the other eight will be part and parcel of these two. You should be able to see how they all fit inside these last two plays." This essay entitled "Framing African American Cultural Identity: The Bookends Plays in August Wilson's 10-Play Cycle" examines the intertextual relationships within and among five of August Wilson's cycle plays while paying close attention to two of Wilson's plays that are strategically positioned at the beginning and end of a ninety-six-year time line.
Some Losses Remain with Us: Impossible Mourning and the Prevalence of Ritual in August Wilson's The Piano Lesson
Authors: Singleton Jermaine
Published: April 2009

Despite psychoanalytic criticism's universalizing, ahistorical, and imperialist inclinations, it nevertheless can prove indispensable for understanding The Piano Lesson 's representation of post-emancipation African America's unclaimed cultural inheritance. This is the argument "Some Losses Remain with Us" makes as it puts psychoanalytic theorizations of Sigmund Freud's concept of melancholia and Jacques Derrida's post-structuralist reading of Karl Marx's work on specters in conversation with Wilson's play to uncover a paradigm for understanding a cultural melancholy. Wilson's play reveals how hidden affect is sustained as a result of and in resistance to an enduring struggle with racial oppression. In doing so, the play stages parallel trajectories of psychological restriction sustained by post-Emancipation black men and women through ritual practice as they struggle for inclusion in a segregationist society that has historically subjugated them.
"…if you live long enough the boat will turn around": The Birth and Death of Community in Three Plays by August Wilson
Authors: Noggle Richard
Published: April 2009

The article "'If you live long enough the boat will turn around': The Birth and Death of Community in Three Plays by August Wilson," examines what are, chronologically, the first and final two plays of Wilson's decade-by-decade cycle of twentieth-century African American life: Gem of the Ocean, King Hedley II , and Radio Golf . The article uses Joseph Roach's notion of "surrogation"-"the enactment of cultural memory by substitution" (1966, 80) to explore how communities continually changing societal values. Gem builds to a clear and optimistic moment of "surrogation" while the plays set near the end of the century offer a darker and more ambiguous interrogation of how a community can move forward after losing its spiritual center-represented through Wilson's Aunt Ester.
"She Make You Right with Yourself": Aunt Ester, Masculine Loss and Cultural Redemption in August Wilson's Cycle Plays
Authors: Caywood Cynthia L. , Floyd Carlton
Published: April 2009

August Wilson proclaimed the centuries old matriarch, Aunt Ester, his most significant character. Her presence incarnates a key Wilson idea: The need for African Americans to move forward into the future through embracing their past. This movement has been hindered by African Americans embracing European American values, particularly African American men, who have been hopelessly disenfranchised by European American definitions of masculinity that reward assimilation and result in the rejection of the African sensibilities that Wilson saw as essential to African American survival. Wilson's Decalogue documents repeatedly the need for African American men to reconnect with traditional, culturally rooted African sensibilities as they have been preserved by Aunt Ester. Ultimately, Aunt Ester must die to make way for a male redeemer whose presence symbolizes a restoration of this traditional African ethos in African American lives, a presence not yet existent, but one for which a glimmer of hope remains.
"Their baggage a long line of separation and dispersement": Haunting and Trans-generational Trauma in Joe Turner's Come and Gone
Authors: Grant Sinikka
Published: April 2009

In August Wilson's play Joe Turner's Come and Gone traumatic events in the lives of past generations return to haunt the characters of the play. This article argues that the horrors of the Middle Passage and of slavery have caused an ontological rupture that produces haunting. The unknown and untold stories of a violent past-a silence that marks the rupture-are loaded with traumatic material, which is unwittingly transmitted from one generation to another. In Joe Turner this trans-generational trauma, which is inextricably linked with questions of mourning and melancholia, is manifest in the traumatized character of Herald Loomis, whose personal experiences of violence mirror those of his ancestors, as well as in the on-going struggle between Western influences and African heritage in the play.
Dynamics of Intermingling Gender and Slavery in Somalia at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Authors: Declich Francesca
Published: April 2009

The history of slavery in the Somali country reveals some of the social dynamics that brought women slaves to the crossroads of the intermingling of people from Cushitic groups and Bantu-speaking groups. Yet little has been written about the characteristics of slavery in Somalia at the turn of the twentieth century. This article brings together some data from a civil court register of the town of Brava and from information collected by Italian officers and administrators, in order to sketch out some of the gendered facets of slavery at the turn of the century.
From Student to Scholar: The Academic Library and Social Sciences PhD Students’ Transformation
Authors: Fleming-May Rachel , Yuro Lisa
Published: April 2009

Although research concerning the information-seeking behavior of academic library users is abundant, few studies have focused specifically on PhD students. This oversight has had an impact on librarians’ ability to effectively market services such as information literacy instruction and research assistance to doctoral students. In order to investigate both their information-seeking processes and the affective dimensions of their research, the authors conducted three focus groups with 24 social sciences doctoral students and then corroborated their findings with a survey of academic librarians. The goal of this project is to provide academic librarians with insight about the process of PhD education and to suggest possible points of intervention for improving communication with and services to this group.
Self-Archiving Journal Articles: A Case Study of Faculty Practice and Missed Opportunity
Authors: Troll Covey Denise
Published: April 2009

Carnegie Mellon faculty Web pages and publisher policies were examined to understand self-archiving practice. The breadth of adoption and depth of commitment are not directly correlated within the disciplines. Determining when self-archiving has become a habit is difficult. The opportunity to self-archive far exceeds the practice, and much of what is self-archived is not aligned with publisher policy. Policy appears to influence neither the decision to self-archive nor the article version that is self-archived. Because of the potential legal ramifications, faculty must be convinced that copyright law and publisher policy are important and persuaded to act on that conviction.
Guiding Questions for Assessing Information Literacy in Higher Education
Authors: Oakleaf Megan , Kaske Neal
Published: April 2009

Librarians throughout higher education must assess information literacy; however, many are overwhelmed by the prospect of selecting the best assessment for their campus context. This article presents six questions to aid librarians in surmounting this challenge. Are we ready to conduct an information literacy assessment? Why are we conducting this assessment? What are the stakeholder needs? Will the assessment tell us what we want to know? What are the costs of this assessment? What are the institutional implications of this assessment? Armed with the answers to these questions, librarians will be well positioned to make informed assessment choices.
Themes of Change in Corporate Libraries: Considerations for Academic Libraries
Authors: Housewright Ross
Published: April 2009

The move to an increasingly digital research environment has substantially disintermediated both academic and corporate libraries from the research process. The full impact of this disruptive change has been more clearly expressed in the corporate environment, in which libraries are less insulated by institutional tradition and historical prestige. Consideration of the changes felt and the strategies adopted by corporate libraries to maintain institutional relevance in a disintermediated research environment offers insight for academic libraries into how to weather changes to come and maintain their active roles in the intellectual life of the campus.
Libraries and Learning: A History of Paradigm Change
Authors: Bennett Scott
Published: April 2009

The transformation of information from a scarce to a superabundant commodity has driven three paradigms in the design of library space. These are the reader-centered, book-centered, and learning-centered paradigms. The first two competed inconclusively with one another throughout most of the twentieth century. Revolutionary changes in information technology have only recently made a third design paradigm possible, one focused on intentional (or autonomous) learning. This paradigm frees us from a schoolwork approach to learning and from mere trafficking of information. The challenge before us is to align library space design with the transformational character of intentional learning.
The History of Air: Hamlet and the Trouble with Instruments
Authors: Mazzio Carla
Published: April 2009

Drawing inspiration from Francis Bacon’s early call for someone to write a work entitled A History of the Air , Mazzio’s article focuses on the elusive element of air as it confounded techniques of artistic and scientific “capture” in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Mazzio highlights not the efficacy but rather the limits of material instruments and technologies in the face of attempts to control, understand, represent or emulate the properties of air. In doing so, she emphasizes how approaches to the history of science that focus upon new instruments as central vehicles of conceptual innovation tell only a part of the story, and thus can obscure the productiveness of technologies and instruments that did not work, and overlook forms of innovation occurring at the limit of materialism and material advancement. Albrecht Dürer’s Melencolia I and Shakespeare’s Hamlet are both resituated in terms of the way in which they deploy their respective artisanal technologies to encode the problem of subjecting the element of air to capture, and yet reimagine, technological limit as artistic and affective potential. The attention to affect in the works explored is seen, in part, as a byproduct of particular historical moments in which the agency of the air was as devastating and terrifying as the possibility of capturing or emulating it was exhilarating. As an invisible or quasi-visible phenomenon, the air posed fundamental challenges to emergent procedures of empirical observation, yet stimulated creative alternatives in both the “arts” and “sciences” through which the air could be taken in anew.
The Nature of Norms in Early Modern England: Anatomy, Cartography, King Lear
Authors: Traub Valerie
Published: April 2009

Many scholars have argued that King Lear draws inspiration from the early modern sciences of anatomy and cartography, even as it critiques the modes of knowledge (violent and penetrative or rational and imperial) they represent. Taking its cue from the conflation of anatomical and cartographic tropes in Shakespeare’s play as well as in scholars’ accounts of it, this article tracks the material and ideological interaction of anatomical illustrations of the human body and representations of human figures on maps; it then reinterprets the play in light of that confluence. Rather than offering judgment on the efficacy or pretensions of science, the use of anatomy and cartography in King Lear participates in an emerging epistemology of human embodiment: a universalizing logic of the grid by which humans would be identified and differentiated, classified and compared.

Read in relation to the play’s invocation of nature, Lear ’s creation of an abstract, representative human reveals a genealogy of the modern concepts of norms and the normal. Scholars have contended that the logic of normality first emerged in the Enlightenment and gained traction over the nineteenth century. From the prospect provided by Lear , we access a prehistory to the discourse of normality—one that shows the concepts of nature and norms interacting, not through shared prescriptions of bodily conduct, but through their common commitment to universalizing styles of reasoning. In addition to shedding light on the play and critics’ treatments of it, this genealogy of normality enables a reassessment of aesthetic appraisals of Shakespeare’s “greatest tragedy” as well as the critical controversy that long attended the play’s performance history. King Lear bequeaths to us the terms of abstract universal humanity—a discourse of normality infused with and bolstered by appeals to our common nature—by which we still judge the play, and each other.
Shakespeare and the Making of Early Modern Science: Resituating Prospero’s Art
Authors: Spiller Elizabeth
Published: April 2009

This article argues that art functioned as the mechanism through which early modern culture shifted from Aristotelian scholasticism to modern fact-based experimental science and situates Shakespeare’s play The Tempest within that larger epistemological shift. It provides an account of two developments that were important for the emergence of early modern science: first, the development of maker’s knowledge traditions; second, changes in philosophical attitudes toward the meaning of accidents. Both art and accident had been excluded from the primary Aristotelian categories of knowledge, but they are central to The Tempest and to early modern culture more generally. Prospero’s “Art” expresses the remarkable power of this model of art as a knowledge practice; yet, the play also suggests reasons why the Renaissance conception of art as knowledge was ultimately displaced by a modern science of facts. Through the example of The Tempest , Spiller argues that we must reassess our understanding of what counted as knowledge in order to understand the role that art, poetry, and drama had on the early modern development of science.
Physics Divined: The Science of Calvin, Hooker, and Macbeth
Authors: Poole Kristen
Published: April 2009

According to scholarly tradition, John Calvin was hostile to the science of his day. This notion, as has recently been demonstrated, is based upon fabricated quotes by nineteenthcentury scholars. In fact, Poole’s article emphasizes, Calvin was deeply interested in the astronomical innovations of his day, and the first book of the Institutes of the Christian Religion is steeped in astronomical and cosmological language. In crucial ways, the theology of the Institutes rests on Calvin’s presentation of the physical machinations of the universe. The doctrine of predestination, in Calvin’s writing, emerges from the notion of a radically contingent physical world. By contrast, the English theologian Richard Hooker bases his understanding of God on the notion of an utterly predictable and stable physical environment and cosmology. At the turn of the seventeenth century, then, competing English theologies were predicated on competing understandings of the material universe. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth , Poole finds a play, and a main character, trying to negotiate between these two irreconcilable models of physics and, by extension, two irreconcilable understandings of God.
Botanical Shakespeares: The Racial Logic of Plant Life in Titus Andronicus
Authors: Feerick Jean
Published: April 2009

The early modern epistemic overlap between plant and person, Feerick’s article demonstrates, can expand critical work on early modern race both in and beyond Shakespearean drama. It centers upon an analysis of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus , a play that brings plant bodies and human bodies into dizzying dramatic collision. In contrast to critics of the Enlightenment who have argued that the drive to classify plants into phyla and species helped to shape epistemologies of human difference, both gendered and racialized, this article works backward, examining how the premodern logic of botany helped to constitute a different racial idiom. During this pre-Linnaean taxonomic moment when natural history emerged as a discipline defined by its fascination with the particulars of nature but also by its reluctance to systematize nature, Renaissance naturalists espoused anthropomorphic classificatory principles, importing attributes of the social realm to define the relationships among plants. Titus Andronicus adapts many of these classifying principles, using them to work through a set of social contradictions implicated in the production of competing notions of human difference. Feerick’s argument is not merely that botanical imagery pervades the drama as a charged thematic. Rather, it suggests ways in which dramatic literature uses both the “natural” hierarchies thought to inform botanical form and specific horticultural practices like grafting to resolve conflicting notions of how humans differ in kind. The early modern category of race, this article ultimately argues, has much more to do with bloodlines than criticism has thus far allowed and that attention to early modern theories of plant physiology can help scholars begin to appreciate this difference.
Shakespeare and Science, c. 1600
Authors: Mazzio Carla
Published: April 2009

Shakespeare & Science examines Shakespearean drama in light of early practices, theories, and conceptual lexicons of anatomy, cartography, botany, physics, cosmology, meteorology, experimental science, and early variants of “life science.” In doing so, it aims, on the one hand, to expand our understanding of the relationships between art and science, nature and norms, and experience and experiment in the early modern period, and, on the other hand, to attend to the relative neglect of Shakespeare in recent scholarship on literature and science informed by new developments in the History of Science and Science Studies. Featuring new articles by Jean Feerick, Carla Mazzio, Kristen Poole, Elizabeth Spiller, Valerie Traub, Henry Turner, and William West, this Special Issue aims to move beyond earlier assessments of Shakespeare and particular sciences, and beyond the analysis of thematic traces of, or indeed reflections of, historical arenas of scientific practice, investigation and explication. It aims rather, to move toward a more nuanced understanding of forms of consilience and contestation between dramatic and scientific practices, epistemologies, mentalities, and assumptions integral to the making and unmaking of knowledge. While presenting a series of varied and innovative arguments on science, culture and Shakespearean drama, this volume is designed to pose as many questions as it provides answers, and in doing so to spur new research into Shakespeare and the manifold “sciences” that informed, and would be informed by, his works.

Mazzio’s introduction historicizes “science” c. 1600 and maps out earlier interests in “Shakespeare and science,: including a still largely unexplored archive of nineteenth and early twentieth-century scientific practitioners (of chemistry, meteorology, entomology, ornithology, botany, medicine and mineralogy) writing books and articles on Shakespeare and their particular area of specialization. It also attends to various treatments of Shakespeare and various sciences in the twentieth century in order to emphasize that, while the articles themselves offer new approaches and insights to Shakespearean drama, Shakespeare & Science emerges even as it departs from a long and variegated tradition of inquiry into Shakespearean drama and practices and forms of knowledge aligned with the sciences.
What’s the Matter With Shakespeare?: Physics, Identity, Playing
Authors: West William N.
Published: April 2009

During the religious reforms of the sixteenth century, traditionalists and reformers debated the physical nature of the Eucharist—which seemed to require two bodies to occupy the same place, or a single body to be in multiple places, at one time—within a shared framework of Aristotelian physics. In this tradition, any “thing” was a combination of underlying matter and a form which gave it shape and identity. Transubstantiation was of course the miraculous substitution during the mass of Christ’s body for the matter of the bread and the wine, while their outward forms remained the same as before. But many reformers challenged transubstantiation on the grounds not simply of theology, but of physics—that it was physically nonsensical. In the second half of the century this conundrum within theology and physics emerges as a quintessentially theatrical problem, embodied onstage in the recurring tropes of disguise, or of indistinguishable twins, even of the ordinary staging practices like the doubling of parts or the transvestite playing of women by boys. The plays of Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and their predecessors, West argues, both drew on and contributed to these debates by producing experiments in what we could call a “physics of performance.” The idea that one body might assume multiple identities was of particular interest to players, which of course their occupation required of them daily. Shakespeare’s plays show no clear allegiance to any particular physical theory of the world, instead displaying a readiness to make use of whatever world picture offered the most dramatic force in any situation. The character of Richard III, however, West argues, provides a sustained engagement with Aristotle’s physics, in particular the possibilities that open in a world made of unformed matter that can be repeatedly reshaped into multiple identities.
Life Science: Rude Mechanicals, Human Mortals, Posthuman Shakespeare
Authors: Turner Henry S.
Published: April 2009

This article considers Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in light of recent inquiry into the definition of “life” by philosophers of science, including Giorgio Agamben, Michel Foucault, Norbert Wiener, and Georges Canguilhem. It suggests that Shakespeare’s theater should be understood as a machine or technical device for generating artificial forms of life and compares it to twentieth-century experiments in computing and to twenty-first century new media technology. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream , we find a meta-theatrical treatment of the problem of “character” as a form of artificial life, a posthuman entity that challenges us to re-imagine our own post-Enlightenment categories, including the relationship between literary and scientific modes of understanding.
Esterified Cholesterol Is Highly Localized to Bruch's Membrane, as Revealed by Lipid Histochemistry in Wholemounts of Human Choroid
Authors: Rudolf Martin , Curcio Christine A.
Published: April 2009

Accumulation of neutral lipids in Bruch's membrane (BrM) is a major age change in human retina and contributes to the formation of extracellular lesions associated with age-related macular degeneration. We developed a BrM–choroid wholemounting technique suitable for reliable staining and evaluated different fluorescent lipid dyes for topographic semiquantitative analysis of BrM lipids. Thin BrM–choroid complexes with partially stripped choroid from 10 aged donor eyes were prepared with an optimized wholemounting technique. Preparation quality was monitored by examining 1-μm-thick sections of representative samples. The staining patterns of Nile Red, BODIPY 493/503, filipin for unesterified cholesterol (UC-F), filipin for esterified cholesterol (EC-F), and Oil Red O in wholemounts were compared with their staining patterns in chorioretinal sections, using wide-field epi-fluorescence microscopy. Wholemounts exhibited optimal flatness on the BrM side. Reduced tissue thickness allowed reliable dye penetration and staining of BrM. Only EC-F was with high specificity localized to BrM and demonstrated an intense and distinct granular staining pattern not previously appreciated in chorioretinal sections. All other lipid dyes also stained choroidal or retinal tissue intensely. No dye provided perfect characteristics in regard to representing all neutral lipid classes present in BrM or to fluorescence intensity. Nevertheless, only EC-F was highly localized to BrM with a specific granular pattern. Because direct assays indicate that esterified cholesterol is abundantly present in BrM, we consider EC-F the most valuable choice for analyzing neutral lipid deposits in human BrM.
Measuring the Impact of Experimental Parameters upon the Estimated Thermal Conductivity of Closed-Cell Foam Insulation Subjected to an Accelerated Aging Protocol: Two-Year Results
Authors: Stovall Therese
Published: April 2009

The thermal conductivity of many closed-cell foam insulation products changes over time as production gases diffuse out of the cell matrix and atmospheric gases diffuse into the cells. Thin slicing has been shown to be an effective means of accelerating this process in such a way as to produce meaningful results. Efforts to produce a more prescriptive version of the ASTM C1303, “Standard Test Method for Predicting Long-Term Thermal Resistance of Closed-Cell Foam Insulation,” have led to a broad ruggedness test. This test includes the aging of full-size insulation specimens for time periods up to 5 years for later comparison to the predicted results. Experimental parameters under investigation include: slice thickness, slice origin (at the surface or from the core of the slab), thin-slice stack composition, product facings, original product thickness, product density, and product type. This paper will compare the results after two years of full-thickness aging.
mStruct: Inference of Population Structure in Light of Both Genetic Admixing and Allele Mutations
Authors: Shringarpure Suyash , Xing Eric P
Published: April 2009

Traditional methods for analyzing population structure, such as the Structure program, ignore the influence of the effect of allele mutations between the ancestral and current alleles of genetic markers, which can dramatically influence the accuracy of the structural estimation of current populations. Studying these effects can also reveal additional information about population evolution such as the divergence time and migration history of admixed populations. We propose mStruct, an admixture of population-specific mixtures of inheritance models that addresses the task of structure inference and mutation estimation jointly through a hierarchical Bayesian framework, and a variational algorithm for inference. We validated our method on synthetic data and used it to analyze the Human Genome Diversity Project–Centre d'Etude du Polymorphisme Humain (HGDP–CEPH) cell line panel of microsatellites and HGDP single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. A comparison of the structural maps of world populations estimated by mStruct and Structure is presented, and we also report potentially interesting mutation patterns in world populations estimated by mStruct.
Novel Nucleotide Sequence Motifs That Produce Hotspots of Meiotic Recombination inSchizosaccharomyces pombe
Authors: Steiner Walter W , Steiner Estelle M , Girvin Angela R , Plewik Lauren E
Published: April 2009

In many organisms, including yeasts and humans, meiotic recombination is initiated preferentially at a limited number of sites in the genome referred to as recombination hotspots. Predicting precisely the location of most hotspots has remained elusive. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that hotspots can result from multiple different sequence motifs. We devised a method to rapidly screen many short random oligonucleotide sequences for hotspot activity in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe and produced a library of ∼500 unique 15- and 30-bp sequences containing hotspots. The frequency of hotspots found suggests that there may be a relatively large number of different sequence motifs that produce hotspots. Within our sequence library, we found many shorter 6- to 10-bp motifs that occurred multiple times, many of which produced hotspots when reconstructed in vivo. On the basis of sequence similarity, we were able to group those hotspots into five different sequence families. At least one of the novel hotspots we found appears to be a target for a transcription factor, as it requires that factor for its hotspot activity. We propose that many hotspots in S. pombe, and perhaps other organisms, result from simple sequence motifs, some of which are identified here.
Molecular Evolution of Phytochromes inCardamine nipponica(Brassicaceae) Suggests the Involvement ofPHYEin Local Adaptation
Authors: Ikeda Hajime , Fujii Noriyuki , Setoguchi Hiroaki
Published: April 2009

Given that plants are sessile organisms, traits involved in adapting to local environments and/or in monitoring the surrounding environment, such as having photoreceptors, are significant targets of natural selection in plant evolution. To assess the intraspecific adaptive evolution of photoreceptors, we investigated sequence variations in four phytochrome genes (PHYA–C and PHYE) of Cardamine nipponica (Brassicaceae), an endemic Japanese alpine plant. The genealogies of haplotypes and genetic differentiations showed inconsistent patterns of evolution across phytochromes, suggesting that evolutionary forces were distinct in phytochromes of C. nipponica. An overall low level of nucleotide diversity in phytochrome genes suggests that the evolution of phytochromes is constrained by purifying selection within C. nipponica, which is consistent with previous findings on phytochromes. However, PHYE alone exhibited a non-neutral pattern of polymorphisms (Tajima's D = 1.91, P < 0.05) and an accumulation of nonsynonymous substitutions between central and northern Japan. In particular, the PHY domain, which plays an important role in stabilizing the active form (Pfr) of phytochromes, harbored a specific nonsynonymous fixation between regions. Thus, our finding indicates that local adaptation is involved in the evolution of PHYE in C. nipponica and is the first to suggest the involvement of PHYE in local adaptation.
Genetic Architecture of Tameness in a Rat Model of Animal Domestication
Authors: Albert Frank W , Carlborg Örjan , Plyusnina Irina , Besnier Francois , Hedwig Daniela , Lautenschläger Susann , Lorenz Doreen , McIntosh Jenny , Neumann Christof , Richter Henning , Zeising Claudia , Kozhemyakina Rimma , Shchepina Olesya , Kratzsch Jürgen , Trut Lyudmila , Teupser Daniel , Thiery Joachim , Schöneberg Torsten , Andersson Leif , Pääbo Svante
Published: April 2009

A common feature of domestic animals is tameness—i.e., they tolerate and are unafraid of human presence and handling. To gain insight into the genetic basis of tameness and aggression, we studied an intercross between two lines of rats (Rattus norvegicus) selected over >60 generations for increased tameness and increased aggression against humans, respectively. We measured 45 traits, including tameness and aggression, anxiety-related traits, organ weights, and levels of serum components in >700 rats from an intercross population. Using 201 genetic markers, we identified two significant quantitative trait loci (QTL) for tameness. These loci overlap with QTL for adrenal gland weight and for anxiety-related traits and are part of a five-locus epistatic network influencing tameness. An additional QTL influences the occurrence of white coat spots, but shows no significant effect on tameness. The loci described here are important starting points for finding the genes that cause tameness in these rats and potentially in domestic animals in general.
Reciprocal Silencing, Transcriptional Bias and Functional Divergence of Homeologs in Polyploid Cotton (Gossypium)
Authors: Chaudhary Bhupendra , Flagel Lex , Stupar Robert M , Udall Joshua A , Verma Neetu , Springer Nathan M , Wendel Jonathan F
Published: April 2009

Polyploidy is an important force in the evolution of flowering plants. Genomic merger and doubling induce an extensive array of genomic effects, including immediate and long-term alterations in the expression of duplicate genes (“homeologs”). Here we employed a novel high-resolution, genome-specific, mass-spectrometry technology and a well-established phylogenetic framework to investigate relative expression levels of each homeolog for 63 gene pairs in 24 tissues in naturally occurring allopolyploid cotton (Gossypium L.), a synthetic allopolyploid of the same genomic composition, and models of the diploid progenitor species. Results from a total of 2177 successful expression assays permitted us to determine the extent of expression evolution accompanying genomic merger of divergent diploid parents, genome doubling, and genomic coevolution in a common nucleus subsequent to polyploid formation. We demonstrate that 40% of homeologs are transcriptionally biased in at least one stage of cotton development, that genome merger per se has a large effect on relative expression of homeologs, and that the majority of these alterations are caused by cis-regulatory divergence between the diploid progenitors. We describe the scope of transcriptional subfunctionalization and 15 cases of probable neofunctionalization among 8 tissues. To our knowledge, this study represents the first characterization of transcriptional neofunctionalization in an allopolyploid. These results provide a novel temporal perspective on expression evolution of duplicate genomes and add to our understanding of the importance of polyploidy in plants.
Conceptions and hypothesis to the pathogenesis of enteritis regionalis (Crohn’s disease)
Authors: Kapp Pál , Bély Miklós
Published: April 2009

A szerzők a polifaktorális Crohn-betegség (CD) patogenezisének tisztázása céljából az elmúlt tíz évben kórházukban kezelt betegek kórelőzményi adatait elemezték, és a betegek endoszkópos, illetve bélműtéti anyagából hisztopatológiai és ultrastrukturális vizsgálatokat végeztek. Vizsgálataik során Crohn-betegekben a klinikai lefolyás, a patológiai és szubmikroszkópos eltérésekben a Selye-koncepcióra jellegzetes, számos azonos jelet észleltek, amelyeket ismertetnek. Tapasztalataik alapján feltételezik, hogy Crohn-betegekben a kóros folyamatok valamilyen nem specifikus, krónikus stresszorok hatására indulhatnak el. Ezek hatására a szervek szöveteiben a celluláris homeosztázis állapot már korán zavart szenved. A külső hatásokra az igen érzékeny és a sejthomeosztázis biztosításáért felelős, felszíni és intracelluláris dinamikus „folyékony” lipoprotein-membránszerkezetek permeabilitása megváltozik. A primer sejtmembrán-károsodásra, majd az ezt követően kialakuló eróziók és fekélyek hatására, másodlagosan nyílik alkalom a bélben előforduló kórokozók intramuralis behatolására. Így a csípőbél-elváltozás feltehetően már nem kezdeti szakasza, hanem későbbi jele lehet a betegségnek. CD-ben szenvedő emberekben, a metabolikus zavarokra utaló eltérések mellett, a szöveti és ultrastrukturális vizsgálataik során az akkomodációs folyamatok jeleit és következményeit szintén észlelték. Így végeredményben a sejteket behálózó membránszerkezetekben és a neuroendokrin rendszer jelzett szakaszában megfigyeltekkel magyarázhatók feltehetően az extraintestinalisan jelentkező tünetek, eltérések is. Ugyanis a szervezetben a kisméretű vérerek fala, a velőshüvelyű idegrostok állománya, sőt, a retina egyes részei szintén bőven tartalmaznak membránszerkezeteket. Felidézik több szerző idevágó újabb adatait, amely szerint CD-ben szenvedő anyákban a koraszülés és az embrió-, valamint a magzatkárosodás gyakrabban fordul elő. Mindezeket a glikokortikoidok kóros hatásával magyarázzák.
In utero thrombosis of neonates: inhereted thrombophilia?
Authors: Nagy Andrea , Mogyorósy Gábor , Kiss Csongor , Pataki István , Amir Houshang Shemirani , Oláh Éva
Published: April 2009

A thromboembolia ritkán előforduló betegség gyermekkorban. Leggyakrabban újszülött- és adolescens korban észlelhető. Incidenciája az irodalmi adatok szerint 5,1/100000 élveszülés. Közleményükben a szerzők 1996 és 2006 között a Debreceni Egyetem, Orvos- és Egészségtudományi Centrum, Gyermekgyógyászati Intézet, Neonatológiai Intenzív Osztályon diagnosztizált és kezelt hét thrombosisos újszülöttnél (2,5/1000 felvétel) tapasztalt kórlefolyást ismertetik és tapasztalataikat összegzik. A hétből három esetben a thrombosis már intrauterin kialakult. Mindhárom esetben igazolódott az anyai thrombophilia, más rizikófaktor (infekció) csak egy betegnél szerepelt. Az újszülöttek in vivo, illetve post mortem vizsgálata során egyik esetben sem igazolódott az anyáéval azonos típusú thrombophilia. Mindezek alapján a szerzők feltételezik, hogy az anyai thrombophilia okozta hajlam talaján egyéb, eseteikben nem igazolható provokatív faktorok szerepelhetnek kórokként. Tapasztalataik alapján javasolják a thrombophiliás anyák és magzataik terhesség alatti fokozott ellenőrzését.
Lyme borreliosis – lessons learnt from 25 years
Authors: Lakos András
Published: April 2009

Most 25 éve, 1984-ben észleltük az első hazai Lyme-betegeket, és pontosan 20 éve, hogy a László Kórházban megnyitottuk a Lyme-ambulanciát, és éppen 15 éve, hogy magánpraxis keretében megnyitottuk a Kullancsbetegségek Ambulanciáját. Az itt végzett munka legfontosabb állomásai: egy új, kullancs által terjesztett Rickettsia-fertőzés (tick-borne lymphadenopathy) leírása, egy Lyme-immunoblotkit és a hozzá kapcsolódó automata immunoblot reader kifejlesztése. Leírtunk egy új és a korábbiaknál egyszerűbb, megbízhatóbb módszert az intrathecalis borrelia antitest meghatározására, ami nélkülözhetetlen a neuroborreliosis alátámasztására. Rutinszerűen alkalmazzuk az általunk kifejlesztett összehasonlító immunoblot-vizsgálatot (comparative immunoblot assay), ami alkalmas annak a kiderítésére, hogy a szeropozitív lelet hátterében egy jelenleg is fennálló vagy épp régen lezajlott és gyógyult fertőzésről van-e szó. Terhességi Lyme-fertőzéseket vizsgálva elsőként bizonyítottuk be, hogy a kezeletlenül maradtak esetében gyakoribbak a magzati károsodások.
The role of Helicobacter pylori infection in children with chronic immune thrombocytopenic purpura
Authors: Veres Gábor , Karóczkai István , Bodánszky Hedvig , Marosi Anikó , Magyarossi Edina , Dezsőfi Antal , Arató András
Published: April 2009

A
Helicobacter pylori
kóroki szerepe a felnőttkori immunthrombocytopeniás purpurában bizonyított, ám a gyermekkori esetekről eddig csak kevés és egymásnak ellentmondó adatok ismeretesek. Jelen felmérésükben a szerzők a
Helicobacter pylori-
infekció előfordulását vizsgálták immunthrombocytopeniás purpurában szenvedő gyermekekben. Ezenkívül a
Helicobacter pylori
-pozitív gyermekek thrombocytaszámának változását követték nyomon az eradikációt követően.
Betegek és módszer:
A vizsgálatukba 27 immunthrombocytopeniás purpurás gyermeket vontak be (13 fiú, 14 lány, átlagéletkor: 8,2 év, tartomány: 18 hó–18 év). A kontrollcsoportba 38 egészséges gyermek tartozott (20 fiú, 18 lány, átlagéletkor: 9,6 év, tartomány: 4–18 év). A
Helicobacter pylori
-fertőzés igazolása
13
C urea-kilégzési teszt segítségével történt. Az eradikáció sikerességét a kombinált kezelést követően 6 héttel újabb
13
C urea-kilégzési teszt elvégzésével állapították meg.
Eredmény:
Az immunthrombocytopeniás purpurás betegekben a 27 főből 2 gyermek (7,7%) bizonyult
Helicobacter pylori
-pozitívnak. A kontrollokban hasonló előfordulási arányt találtak (3/38, 7,9%). A nyomon követés során (átlagosan 10 hónap, tartomány: 6–14 hó) a
Helicobacter pylori
eradikációját követően a betegek thrombocytaszáma nem emelkedett szignifikánsan. A
Helicobacter pylori
-pozitív immunthrombocytopeniás purpurás betegek eradikációja a kontroll
13
C urea-kilégzési teszt alapján sikeresnek bizonyult.
Következtetés:
Vizsgálatok alapján a
Helicobacter pylori
kóroki szerepe nem igazolható a gyermekkori immunthrombocytopeniás purpurában. Ennek megfelelően a kórképben szenvedő gyermekekben a
Helicobacter pylori
szűrővizsgálata nem javasolt.
The role of zinc in the homeostasis of human organism
Authors: Szentmihályi Klára , Vinkler Péter , Fodor Judit , Balla József , Lakatos Béla
Published: April 2009

Az emberi szervezet sejtjei különböző kompartmentjeinek nyomelem-koncentrációi pontosan szabályozottak (homeosztázis). A fémelemek raktározásának vagy kiürülésének rendellenességei jól karakterizált betegségekhez vezetnek. Ez az összefoglaló a cink metabolizmusával, továbbá az ennek szabályozására szolgáló folyamatokkal foglalkozik, amelyek biztosítják, hogy a cinkionok intracelluláris és extracelluláris szintje azokon a fiziológiai határokon belül maradjon, amelyek között a biológiai funkciók normálisak. Patológiás állapotban a metabolizmus folyamatai is megváltoznak. A cinkionoknak a kompartmenteket elválasztó membránokon és a citoszólon való átjutását, a fémionok szekvesztrálását génregulációk irányítják. A cink hatására kialakuló sejt- és szövetkárosodási folyamatokat, valamint a nyomelemhiányok szimptómáit is részletesen elemezzük.
Selected cases of eyelids and orbita abnormalities and possibilities for correction
Authors: Zajácz Magdolna
Published: April 2009

A dolgozat áttekintést nyújt olyan rendellenességekről, amelyek a szemhéjakat, az orbitát, a periorbitalis területeket érintik. Az elváltozások egy része veszélyezteti a szem fő funkcióját, a látást. Másik ok, ami miatt megoldást igényelnek, a jól látható testterület esztétikai értéke és a javítás szükségessége. Az egyes elváltozások, amelyek leírása, illetve megoldásuknak a szerző által javasolt módszerei a következők: ptosis palpebrae, anophthalmus, cryptophthalmus (ablepharon), tumorok.
Role of hormonal risk factors in oral cancer development
Authors: Suba Zsuzsanna , Maksa Györgyi , Mihályi Szilvia , Takács Dániel
Published: April 2009

Az orális carcinoma (OC) esetek körében igen magas a férfi:nő arány. A nők alacsony száma a férfiakhoz viszonyítva arra utal, hogy endokrin tényezők is szerepet játszhatnak a daganat kialakulásában. Jelen vizsgálataink célja, hogy tisztázzuk, milyen különbségek vannak férfiak és nők között az OC rizikófaktoraira vonatkozóan. A Semmelweis Egyetem Arc-Állcsont-Szájsebészeti és Fogászati Klinikáján jelentkező 2660 beteget (2130 férfi és 530 nő) vontuk be a vizsgálatba. Regisztráltuk a dohányzást és az alkoholfogyasztást, az emelkedett szérumglükózszintet és a nőbetegek menopauzára vonatkozó adatait. A dohányzás és a túlzott alkoholfogyasztás, az irodalmi adatokkal megegyezően, fontos rizikófaktornak bizonyult az OC-esetekben férfiak és nők körében egyaránt. A mérsékelt alkoholfogyasztás viszont gyenge rizikófaktornak bizonyult férfiak körében, és egyáltalán nem jelentett kockázatot a nők számára. Az emelkedett éhomi glükózszint nem volt kimutatható OC-kockázat a férfi betegek körében, ugyanakkor a nők esetében jelentős rizikófaktornak bizonyult, különös tekintettel a gingivacarcinomára. A női OC-betegek csaknem valamennyien posztmenopauzálisak voltak, továbbá a menopauza és az OC diagnózisa között meglehetősen hosszú idő telt el (átlagosan 17 év). Ezek a vizsgálati leletek arra utalnak, hogy az ösztrogénhiány szerepet játszhat az OC iniciációjában. A női OC-esetekben szignifikánsan fiatalabb korban jelentkezett a menopauza, és a hysterectomia aránya is jóval magasabb volt a tumormentes kontrollokkal összehasonlítva, ami szintén alátámasztja az ösztrogénhiány-elméletet. Posztmenopauzális nőbetegekben mind az ösztrogénhiány, mind az emelkedett éhomi glükózszint OC-rizikófaktornak tűnik. Ezek az eredmények új megvilágításba helyezik az orális carcinomák etiológiáját, és magyarázatot adnak arra vonatkozóan, hogy hogyan alakulhatnak ki dohányzásfüggő tumorok dohányzás nélkül.