bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Developing the clinical components of a complex intervention for a glaucoma screening trial: a mixed methods study
Authors:   The Glaucoma screening Platform Study group
Published: June 2011

Background

Glaucoma is a leading cause of avoidable blindness worldwide. Open angle glaucoma is the most common type of glaucoma. No randomised controlled trials have been conducted evaluating the effectiveness of glaucoma screening for reducing sight loss. It is unclear what the most appropriate intervention to be evaluated in any glaucoma screening trial would be. The purpose of this study was to develop the clinical components of an intervention for evaluation in a glaucoma (open angle) screening trial that would be feasible and acceptable in a UK eye-care service.

Methods

A mixed-methods study, based on the Medical Research Council (MRC) framework for complex interventions, integrating qualitative (semi-structured interviews with 46 UK eye-care providers, policy makers and health service commissioners), and quantitative (economic modelling) methods. Interview data were synthesised and used to revise the screening interventions compared within an existing economic model.

Results

The qualitative data indicated broad based support for a glaucoma screening trial to take place in primary care, using ophthalmic trained technical assistants supported by optometry input. The precise location should be tailored to local circumstances. There was variability in opinion around the choice of screening test and target population. Integrating the interview findings with cost-effectiveness criteria reduced 189 potential components to a two test intervention including either optic nerve photography or screening mode perimetry (a measure of visual field sensitivity) with or without tonometry (a measure of intraocular pressure). It would be more cost-effective, and thus acceptable in a policy context, to target screening for open angle glaucoma to those at highest risk but for both practicality and equity arguments the optimal strategy was screening a general population cohort beginning at age forty.

Conclusions

Interventions for screening for open angle glaucoma that would be feasible from a service delivery perspective were identified. Integration within an economic modelling framework explicitly highlighted the trade-off between cost-effectiveness, feasibility and equity. This study exemplifies the MRC recommendation to integrate qualitative and quantitative methods in developing complex interventions. The next step in the development pathway should encompass the views of service users.
A qualitative study of older adults' responses to sitting-time questions: do we get the information we want?
Authors: van Uffelen Jannique GZ , Heesch Kristiann C , Hill Robert L , Brown Wendy J
Published: June 2011

Background

In the last decade, there has been increasing interest in the health effects of sedentary behavior, which is often assessed using self-report sitting-time questions. The aim of this qualitative study was to document older adults' understanding of sitting-time questions from the International Physical Activity (PA) Questionnaire (IPAQ) and the PA Scale for the Elderly (PASE).

Methods

Australian community-dwelling adults aged 65+ years answered the IPAQ and PASE sitting questions in face-to-face semi-structured interviews. IPAQ uses one open-ended question to assess sitting on a weekday in the last 7 days 'at work, at home, while doing coursework and during leisure time'; PASE uses a three-part closed question about daily leisure-time sitting in the last 7 days. Participants expressed their thoughts out loud while answering each question. They were then probed about their responses. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded into themes.

Results

Mean age of the 28 male and 27 female participants was 73 years (range 65-89). The most frequently reported activity was watching TV. For both questionnaires, many participants had difficulties understanding what activities to report. Some had difficulty understanding what activities should be classified as 'leisure-time sitting'. Some assumed they were being asked to only report activities provided as examples. Most reported activities they normally do, rather than those performed on a day in the previous week. Participants used a variety of strategies to select 'a day' for which they reported their sitting activities and to calculate sitting time on that day. Therefore, many different ways of estimating sitting time were used. Participants had particular difficulty reporting their daily sitting-time when their schedules were not consistent across days. Some participants declared the IPAQ sitting question too difficult to answer.

Conclusion

The accuracy of older adults' self-reported sitting time is questionable given the challenges they have in answering sitting-time questions. Their responses to sitting-time questions may be more accurate if our recommendations for clarifying the sitting domains, providing examples relevant to older adults and suggesting strategies for formulating responses are incorporated. Future quantitative studies should include objective criterion measures to assess validity and reliability of these questions.
Modification of the loops in the ligand-binding site turns avidin into a steroid-binding protein
Authors: Riihimäki Tiina A , Hiltunen Soili , Rangl Martina , Nordlund Henri R , Määttä Juha AE , Ebner Andreas , Hinterdorfer Peter , Kulomaa Markku S , Takkinen Kristiina , Hytönen Vesa P
Published: June 2011

Background

Engineered proteins, with non-immunoglobulin scaffolds, have become an important alternative to antibodies in many biotechnical and therapeutic applications. When compared to antibodies, tailored proteins may provide advantageous properties such as a smaller size or a more stable structure.

Results

Avidin is a widely used protein in biomedicine and biotechnology. To tailor the binding properties of avidin, we have designed a sequence-randomized avidin library with mutagenesis focused at the loop area of the binding site. Selection from the generated library led to the isolation of a steroid-binding avidin mutant (sbAvd-1) showing micromolar affinity towards testosterone (Kd ~ 9 μM). Furthermore, a gene library based on the sbAvd-1 gene was created by randomizing the loop area between β-strands 3 and 4. Phage display selection from this library led to the isolation of a steroid-binding protein with significantly decreased biotin binding affinity compared to sbAvd-1. Importantly, differential scanning calorimetry and analytical gel-filtration revealed that the high stability and the tetrameric structure were preserved in these engineered avidins.

Conclusions

The high stability and structural properties of avidin make it an attractive molecule for the engineering of novel receptors. This methodology may allow the use of avidin as a universal scaffold in the development of novel receptors for small molecules.
Lack of effect of apolipoprotein C3 polymorphisms on indices of liver steatosis, lipid profile and insulin resistance in obese Southern Europeans
Authors: Sentinelli Federica , Romeo Stefano , Maglio Cristina , Incani Michela , Burza Maria A , Scano Francesca , Coccia Federica , Cossu Efisio , Leonetti Frida , Baroni Marco G
Published: June 2011

Background

Apolipoprotein C3 (APOC3) is a component of triglyceride-rich lipoproteins, and APOC3 rs2854116 and rs2854117 polymorphisms have been associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, hypertriglyceridaemia, and insulin-resistance.

Objective

To determine if the APOC3 variants alter the susceptibility of obese subjects to develop liver damage, hypertrigliceridaemia, and insulin-resistance.

Methods

The study was carried out on 585 unrelated obese Italians (median body mass index BMI = 41 kg/m2) who were genotyped for the rs2854116 and rs2854117 variants. All participants underwent oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTT), with measurement of glucose, insulin, lipid parameters. Indices of insulin-resistance (HOMA and ISI) were calculated. Alanine transaminase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST) were used as markers of liver injury.

Results

The study subjects were divided into two groups: those homozygous for the wild-type alleles at both SNPs (-482C and -455T alleles) and those who were carriers of at least one variant allele or both (-482T, -455C or both). Also each SNP was analysed independently. No significant differences were found in ALT and AST levels and in the lipid profile between the two groups. Insulin concentrations, glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity were similar in the two groups.

Conclusion

We did not identify any significant association between APOC3 polymorphisms and fatty liver disease, lipids, and insulin-resistance in obese subjects, thus not confirming the suggested role of these APOC3 gene sequence variants.
Functional characterization of human Cd33+ And Cd11b+ myeloid-derived suppressor cell subsets induced from peripheral blood mononuclear cells co-cultured with a diverse set of human tumor cell lines
Authors: Lechner Melissa G , Megiel Carolina , Russell Sarah M , Bingham Brigid , Arger Nicholas , Woo Tammy , Epstein Alan L
Published: June 2011

Background

Tumor immune tolerance can derive from the recruitment of suppressor cell populations, including myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC). In cancer patients, MDSC accumulation correlates with increased tumor burden, but the mechanisms of MDSC induction remain poorly understood.

Methods

This study examined the ability of human tumor cell lines to induce MDSC from healthy donor PBMC using in vitro co-culture methods. These human MDSC were then characterized for morphology, phenotype, gene expression, and function.

Results

Of over 100 tumor cell lines examined, 45 generated canonical CD33+HLA-DRlowLineage- MDSC, with high frequency of induction by cervical, ovarian, colorectal, renal cell, and head and neck carcinoma cell lines. CD33+ MDSC could be induced by cancer cell lines from all tumor types with the notable exception of those derived from breast cancer (0/9, regardless of hormone and HER2 status). Upon further examination, these and others with infrequent CD33+ MDSC generation were found to induce a second subset characterized as CD11b+CD33lowHLA-DRlowLineage-. Gene and protein expression, antibody neutralization, and cytokine-induction studies determined that the induction of CD33+ MDSC depended upon over-expression of IL-1β, IL-6, TNFα, VEGF, and GM-CSF, while CD11b+ MDSC induction correlated with over-expression of FLT3L and TGFβ. Morphologically, both CD33+ and CD11b+ MDSC subsets appeared as immature myeloid cells and had significantly up-regulated expression of iNOS, NADPH oxidase, and arginase-1 genes. Furthermore, increased expression of transcription factors HIF1α, STAT3, and C/EBPβ distinguished MDSC from normal counterparts.

Conclusions

These studies demonstrate the universal nature of MDSC induction by human solid tumors and characterize two distinct MDSC subsets: CD33+HLA-DRlowHIF1α+/STAT3+ and CD11b+HLA-DRlowC/EBPβ+, which should enable the development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic reagents for cancer immunotherapy.
When masculinity interferes with women's treatment of HIV infection: a qualitative study about adherence to antiretroviral therapy in Zimbabwe
Authors: Skovdal Morten , Campbell Catherine , Nyamukapa Constance , Gregson Simon
Published: June 2011

Background

Social constructions of masculinity have been shown to serve as an obstacle to men's access and adherence to antiretroviral therapies (ART). In the light of women's relative lack of power in many aspects of interpersonal relationships with men in many African settings, our objective is to explore how male denial of HIV/AIDS impacts on their female partners' ability to access and adhere to ART.

Methods

We conducted a qualitative case study involving thematic analysis of 37 individual interviews and five focus groups with a total of 53 male and female antiretroviral drug users and 25 healthcare providers in rural eastern Zimbabwe.

Results

Rooted in hegemonic notions of masculinity, men saw HIV/AIDS as a threat to their manhood and dignity and exhibited a profound fear of the disease. In the process of denying and avoiding their association with AIDS, many men undermine their wives' efforts to access and adhere to ART. Many women felt unable to disclose their HIV status to their husbands, forcing them to take their medication in secret, and act without a supportive treatment partner, which is widely accepted to be vitally important for adherence success. Some husbands, when discovering that their wives are on ART, deny them permission to take the drugs, or indeed steal the drugs for their own treatment. Men's avoidance of HIV also leave many HIV‐positive women feeling vulnerable to re‐infection as their husbands, in an attempt to demonstrate their manhood, are believed to continue engaging in HIV‐risky behaviours.

Conclusions

Hegemonic notions of masculinity can interfere with women's adherence to ART. It is important that those concerned with promoting effective treatment services recognise the gender and household dynamics that may prevent some women from successfully adhering to ART, and explore ways to work with both women and men to identify couples‐based strategies to increase adherence to ART
Impact of UGT2B7

His268Tyr
polymorphism on the outcome of adjuvant epirubicin treatment in breast cancer
Authors: Parmar Sumit , Stingl Julia Carolin , Huber-Wechselberger Ariana , Kainz Alexander , Renner Wilfried , Langsenlehner Uwe , Krippl Peter , Brockmöller Jürgen , Haschke-Becher Elisabeth
Published: June 2011

Introduction

Epirubicin is a common adjuvant treatment for breast cancer. It is mainly eliminated after glucuronidation through uridine diphosphate-glucuronosyltransferase 2B7 (UGT2B7). The present study aimed to describe the impact of the UGT2B7
His268Tyr
polymorphism on invasive disease-free survival in breast cancer patients after epirubicin treatment.

Methods

This is a pharmacogenetic study based on samples collected from 745 breast cancer patients of the Austrian Tumor of breast tissue: Incidence, Genetics, and Environmental Risk factors (TIGER) cohort who did not present metastases at baseline. This cohort included 205 women with epirubicin-based combination chemotherapy, 113 patients having received chemotherapy without epirubicin and 427 patients having received no chemotherapy at all. Of the epirubicin-treated subgroup, 120 were subsequently treated with tamoxifen. For all women UGT2B7
His268Tyr
was genotyped. Invasive disease-free survival was assessed using Kaplan-Meier and Cox's proportional hazard regression analysis.

Results

Among the 205 epirubicin-treated patients, carriers of two UGT2B7
268Tyr
alleles had a mean invasive disease-free survival of 8.6 (95% confidence interval (CI) 7.9 to 9.3) years as compared to 7.5 (95% CI 6.9 to 8.0) years in carriers of at least one UGT2B7
268His
allele (adjusted hazard ratio (HR) = 2.64 (95% CI 1.22 to 5.71); P = 0.014). In addition, the impact of the UGT2B7
His268Tyr
polymorphism became even more pronounced in patients subsequently treated with tamoxifen (adjusted HR = 5.22 (95% CI 1.67 to 26.04); P = 0.015) whereas no such difference in invasive disease-free survival was observed in patients not receiving epirubicin.

Conclusions

Breast cancer patients carrying the UGT2B7
268Tyr/Tyr
genotype may benefit most from adjuvant epirubicin-based chemotherapy. These results warrant confirmation in further studies.
Value of arterial blood gas analysis in patients with acute dyspnea: an observational study
Authors: Burri Emanuel , Potocki Mihael , Drexler Beatrice , Schuetz Philipp , Mebazaa Alexandre , Ahlfeld Ulrike , Balmelli Catharina , Heinisch Corinna , Noveanu Markus , Breidthardt Tobias , Schaub Nora , Reichlin Tobias , Mueller Christian
Published: June 2011

Introduction

The diagnostic and prognostic value of arterial blood gas analysis (ABGA) parameters in unselected patients presenting with acute dyspnea to the Emergency Department (ED) is largely unknown.

Methods

We performed a post-hoc analysis of two different prospective studies to investigate the diagnostic and prognostic value of ABGA parameters in patients presenting to the ED with acute dyspnea.

Results

We enrolled 530 patients (median age 74 years). ABGA parameters were neither useful to distinguish between patients with pulmonary disorders and other causes of dyspnea nor to identify specific disorders responsible for dyspnea. Only in patients with hyperventilation from anxiety disorder, the diagnostic accuracy of pH and hypoxemia rendered valuable with an area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) of 0.86. Patients in the lowest pH tertile more often required admission to intensive care unit (28% vs 12% in the first tertile, P < 0.001) and had higher in-hospital (14% vs 5%, P = 0.003) and 30-day mortality (17% vs 7%, P = 0.002). Cumulative mortality rate was higher in the first (37%), than in the second (28%), and the third tertile (23%, P = 0.005) during 12 months follow-up. pH at presentation was an independent predictor of 12-month mortality in multivariable Cox proportional hazard analysis both for patients with pulmonary (P = 0.043) and non-pulmonary disorders (P = 0.038).

Conclusions

ABGA parameters provide limited diagnostic value in patients with acute dyspnea, but pH is an independent predictor of 12 months mortality.
Toward a Cosmopolitan Science Fiction
Authors: Higgins David M.
Published: June 2011

Higgins argues that the depth of science fiction's engagement with imperial themes allows the genre to function as a critical literature of empire. As a literary mode engaged with imperial dream-work, science fiction addresses the operations of imperialism more fully than any other mode of cultural production, and it is from this deep understanding of empire (in both its colonial and neocolonial forms) that the genre produces rich cosmopolitan alternatives to imperial discourse and practice. One example of science fiction's successful interrogation of cosmopolitan concerns can be found in Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish novels. Unlike the work of many other SF authors from the 1960s and 1970s, Le Guin's extrapolations develop throughout her Hainish cycle beyond a straightforward negative critique of imperialism toward a positive and creative conceptualization of cosmopolitan conviviality. The Hainish novels move from a preliminary critique of imperialism and an exploration of cosmopolitan ethics in the early Worlds of Exile and Illusion novellas (1966–67) to a more fully developed imperial critique and a radical imagining of the possible political shapes of instantiated cosmopolitan conviviality in The Left Hand of Darkness (1969). The essay concludes by suggesting that science fiction's celebrations and condemnations of imperial discourse and practice enable the genre as a whole to transcend its own oft-complicit engagements with empire and to generate an imaginative space for the exploration of rich and open-ended cosmopolitan possibilities.
Clean: Death and Desire in Samuel R. Delany's Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand
Authors: Reid-Pharr Robert F.
Published: June 2011

In a reading of Samuel R. Delany's underexamined 1984 science fiction novel, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, Reid-Pharr uses the work of theorists such as Leo Bersani, Mary Douglas, Orlando Patterson, and Hortense Spillers to question the necessity of gay men's relinquishing a presumably dirty and immature gay past in favor of a newfound respectability. Claiming that this process of cleansing works to create a “deadened subjectivity,” he links the contemporary struggles of gay men and lesbians with that of enslaved Africans by arguing that the ideological structures surrounding the HIV/AIDS pandemic are similar to those surrounding the history of African enslavement. In particular, Reid-Pharr criticizes the all-too-common assumption that the disasters of both slavery and AIDS have been a necessary precursor to the modernization—and maturation—of both blacks and “queers.” Framing this phenomenon as a process of figurative cleansing, he argues that what Delany bemoans in his fine novel is the assumption that the “dirty,” “pre-AIDS” history of gay men must be repressed, deadened, or cleansed away before gay men can become fully established modern subjects. Instead Reid-Pharr utilizes Delany's work to call for gay men to hedge their bets, as it were, to continually challenge the ongoing oppression of sexual minorities while remaining suspicious of the offer of a clean (read “dead”) status within modern society.
The Predisposed Agency of Genomic Fiction
Authors: Hamner Everett
Published: June 2011

Hamner's essay analyzes Richard Powers's novel Generosity: An Enhancement as an example of genomic fiction, a genre-bending science fiction subgenre focused on relationships between biology and identity. Prefacing this study with brief readings of novels by Michael Crichton and evangelical author Angela Hunt, the essay reflects extensively on the metaphors and mythologies involved in contemporary genomics. Here Powers has the distinct advantage of being one of only eight individuals, as of 2008, to have had his entire genome sequenced. Hamner interweaves essays about such experiences from Powers and others with questions about the extent to which genomics can be expected to yield new self-understanding. The essay's broadest argument is that by juxtaposing fictional creativity and genomic modification, Generosity effectively illustrates the need for bridge-building across science-religion, religion-humanities, and humanities-science divides. Specifically, Powers reveals the extent to which genes are gaining sacrosanct status in U.S. culture, and in response offers a postsecular, metanarratival science fiction that contextualizes some of the more inflated rhetoric. Defending scientific research but denouncing its metamorphosis into techno-transcendent spectacle, Powers's work aligns fiction and evolution as processes of painfully slow, bottom-up “compositing,” wherein complexity emerges from simplicity, purpose appears in apparent randomness, and agency persists in tension with both inherited and environmental determinants. Ultimately, Hamner's essay shows that beneath questions about genomic identity lie even more profound ones about the nature and purposes of narrative.
A City Bruised
Authors: Clarke Katherine
Published: June 2011

Katherine Clarke charts the development of Belfast's contemporary theater scene, particularly how it has grown since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 brought relative stability to the city. She describes an older generation of theater artists whose work chronicles Belfast's recent years of violence and prejudice, and describes a younger generation whose work ventures beyond the confines of Northern Irish struggle. She also explores a growing community of theater companies creating site-specific work in locations that were significant during the Troubles, to commemorate the events of those years and reshape memories of them into art.
We need to talk: The case for a multidisciplinary approach to designing green policy
Authors: Wells Peter , Macanovic Alvira
Published: June 2011

In order to sensibly design green policy, at least three separate disciplines need to be involved. Clearly, technology will be required to design new processes and redesign old ones. Government policy makers will need to ensure that new regulatory structures adapt and reflect societal goals of decreasing our impact on the planet. Lastly, we need to hear from the economists to make certain that our efforts to develop green processes actually have a net positive effect. This last point is not as obvious as it might appear. James Watt’s invention of the external condenser for steam engines, which he patented in 1769, dramatically reduced coal requirements for a unit of output. Not surprisingly, demand for coal dropped as new steam engines incorporating that design became common after the patent expired in 1794. However, in the period 1830–1860 coal use in England actually increased by an order of magnitude. This is the efficiency paradox. As the effective cost of the product falls because more can be produced from the same raw materials, demand increases. The net result is higher overall consumption. While the focus of green chemistry is the effect emissions are having on the environment, to date we have tended to concentrate on inputs and processes, and not the emissions themselves. In designing policy and new processes, we need to keep phenomena such as the efficiency paradox in mind to ensure that our efforts to improve the environment actually have that effect in practice.
Sex and the subversive alien: The moral life of C. L. R. James
Authors: Johnson W. Chris
Published: June 2011

This article explores the importance of morality, gender, and desire for C. L. R. James's self-representation as a revolutionary intellectual. Social scientific theories that depict radicalism as a one-way Caribbean export to the United Kingdom and the United States have obscured shared
traditions across the modern Atlantic world. Throughout his transatlantic migrations from 1932 to 1952, James trafficked in moral frameworks grounded in heterosexist lessons of discipline, loyalty and self-denial. As a public intellectual, he championed the Puritan ethics of his protestant
middle-class family in colonial Trinidad. In his private life, James had an unsteady orientation to their moral compass. The historiography of the Black Radical Tradition has erased women and gender from the horizons of revolutionary action. The intimacies of radical political organizing in
the United Kingdom and the United States led James to revise, reject, and reproduce patriarchal values of his colonial upbringing. During the 1940s and 1950s he co-founded the Johnson-Forest Tendency, an interracial, intergenerational organization that theorized and organized for the liberation
of women, youth and workers. Despite the Tendency's intersectional agenda, James concentrated political power within himself through the sexual domination of women. Confronting a cold war government intent on deporting him, James staked his claim for US citizenship on the body of his second
wife Constance Webb. An absent husband and authoritarian political leader, James denied his political affiliations and marketed himself to immigration officials as a moral patriarch. In crafting his intellectual legacies, he censored women from his revolutionary biography.
Enlightenment and Romanticism in the French defence of black people in the 1920s: The Ligue Universelle de Dfense de la Race Noire against the colonial republic
Authors: Geneste Elsa
Published: June 2011

The aim of this article is to reconstruct and to interrogate the debates held by the French Left on the problematic political status of African colonized peoples at the beginning of the 1920s. On one side of the debate, administrators in charge of implementing colonial policy advocated
a policy of association which respected African traditional institutions and the rights of the colonial peoples to express their cultural difference. On the other, left-wing intellectuals, particularly those linked to the Section Franaise de l'Internationale Ouvrire (SFIO) and co-directors
of the Ligue Universelle de Dfense de la Race Noire (LUDRN), promoted a policy of political assimilation for Africans, a policy informed by a universalist conception of equality. The present article examines such political oppositions through the prism of the philosophical conflict between
Emmanuel Kant and Johann Gottfried von Herder regarding the opposition between the Enlightenment and Romanticism. In doing so, it explores how such diametrically opposed discourses could both be viewed as modernist and elucidates both the common system of values but also the fundamental political
discord which beset both sides of the debate.
Average of the mean curvature integral in complex space forms
Authors: Abardia Judit
Published: June 2011

In real space forms, given a regular hypersurface S, it is known that the integral over the space of s-planes of the mean curvature integral of intersections with S is a multiple of the mean curvature integral of S. We study the corresponding expression in a complex space form. The role of the s-planes is played by the complex s-planes. We prove that the same property does not hold but another term appears. We express this term as the integral of the normal curvature in the direction obtained from applying the complex structure to the normal direction. As an application, we give the measure of the set of complex lines meeting a compact domain in a complex space form, and we characterize the reproductive continuous invariant valuations of degree 2n – 2 in the standard Hermitian space.
Visible shorelines for unions of islands
Authors: Breen Marilyn
Published: June 2011

For positive integers m and n, let S
1, . . . , Sn
be nonempty sets, each having a subset of at most m labeled points, and let P be a nonempty set. Assume that a subset of each point p of P is associated with some (visibility) subset V(p) of S
1 ∪ ⋯ ∪ Sn
. We ask the following question, motivated by a result of Valentine: When will there exist a set of labeled points s
1, . . . , sn
, si
in Si
, 1 ≤ i ≤ n, such that each V(p) set contains at least one of the si
points? Three results are given here. The first concerns the case for general Si
sets. The second concerns the case in which the Si
sets are simple arcs and V(p) ∩ Si
is connected for each p and each i. The third result interprets the Si
sets as compact, convex islands in the plane and interprets the V(p) sets as visible shorelines of Si
∪ ⋯ ∪ Sn
.
Finite semifields with a large nucleus and higher secant varieties to Segre varieties
Authors: Lavrauw Michel
Published: June 2011

In [Ball, Ebert, Lavrauw, J. Algebra 311: 117–129, 2007] a geometric construction was given of a finite semifield from a certain configuration of two subspaces with respect to a Desarguesian spread in a finite-dimensional vector space over a finite field. Moreover, it was proved that any finite semifield can be obtained in this way. In [Lavrauw, Finite Fields Appl. 14: 897–910, 2008] we proved that the configuration needed for the geometric construction given in [Ball, Ebert, Lavrauw, J. Algebra 311: 117–129, 2007] for finite semifields is equivalent with an (n – 1)-dimensional subspace skew to a determinantal hypersurface in PG(n
2 – 1, q), and provided an answer to the isotopism problem in [Ball, Ebert, Lavrauw, J. Algebra 311: 117–129, 2007]. In this paper we give a generalisation of the BEL-construction using linear sets, and then concentrate on this configuration and the isotopism problem for semifields with nuclei that are larger than its centre.
Right-angled buildings with predetermined rational -Betti numbers
Authors: Boros Dan
Published: June 2011

This paper shows the existence of right-angled buildings with arbitrary predetermined rational -Betti numbers.
Sequence elements outside the catalytic core of natural hairpin ribozymes modulate the reactions differentially
Authors: Bajaj Preeti , Steger Gerhard , Hammann Christian
Published: June 2011

Hairpin ribozymes occur naturally only in the satellite RNAs of tobacco ringspot virus (TRsV), chicory yellow mottle virus (CYMoV) and arabis mosaic virus (ArMV). The catalytic centre of the predominantly studied sTRsV hairpin ribozyme, and of sArMV is organised around a four-way helical junction. We show here that sCYMoV features a five-way helical junction instead. Mutational analysis indicates that the fifth stem does not influence kinetic parameters of the sCYMoV hairpin ribozymein vitroreactions, and therefore seems an appendix to that junction in the other ribozymes. We report further that all three ribozymes feature a three-way helical junction outside the catalytic core in stem A, with Watson-Crick complementarity to loop nucleotides in stem B. Kinetic analyses of cleavage and ligation reactions of several variants of the sTRsV and sCYMoV hairpin ribozymesin vitroshow that the presence of this junction interferes with their reactions, particularly the ligation. We provide evidence that this is not due to a presumed interaction of the afore-mentioned elements in stems A and B. The evolutionary survival of thiscis-inhibiting element seems rather to be caused by the coincidence of its position with that of the hammerhead ribozyme in the other RNA polarity.
Electrical and dielectric sensitivities to thermal processes in carbon nanofiber/high-density polyethylene composites
Authors: Liu Tian , Wood Weston , Li Bin , Lively Brooks , Zhong Wei-Hong
Published: June 2011

Owing to the huge interface region existing in a polymer nanocomposite, the effects of thermal processes on properties of nanocomposites are much more complicated than in a pure polymer. It is therefore important to determine the effects of thermal processes on nanocomposites with different interfacial interactions between the nanofillers and the polymer matrix. It is also important to explore the performance changes for nanocomposites under elevated temperatures over pure polymers. In this investigation, we examined the correlation of thermal treatment with dielectric properties of carbon nanofiber (CNF) reinforced high-density polyethylene nanocomposites. The thermal treatment of specimens was conducted for up to 120 h at 87°C and 127°C. Then, alternating current (AC) conductivity and dielectric properties were tested after definite intervals of time. Their changing rates over treatment time were analyzed. The results revealed the approximate linear relationships of AC conductivity and dielectric constant vs. heating time. Modified CNF reinforced nanocomposites had less influence by the heating treatments exhibiting better thermal resistance. The change rates of AC conductivity σ and dielectric properties have higher sensitivity to the treatment at a higher temperature. This study provides potential for further research on application of electrical and dielectric signals to detect the effects of heating process on lifetime of polymeric materials.
Increase of bending strength and maximum deflection of concrete reinforced with CFRP strips
Authors: Ben Goichi , Sakata Kazuhiro , Saito Kazuma
Published: June 2011

In 1981, many detached houses collapsed owing to the earthquake which took place at the coast of Miyagi Prefecture in Japan, because ferroconcrete was not used as the base of most of the collapsed houses. Therefore, the earthquake-proof design criterion was revised and it was obliged to use ferroconcrete as the base of detached houses ever since. However, there are still more than 10 million detached houses using aged concrete as the base in Japan. In this paper, a reinforcement method for the aged concrete is demonstrated by using the high performance carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) strips. Three kinds of concrete beams reinforced with the CFRP strips with different vertical insert positions and different numbers of the CFRP strips were tested by a four point bending test method. In order to clarify the effects of CFRP strips, a concrete beam without reinforcement was also tested. The results of the experiment showed that the maximum deflections of the concrete beams reinforced with the CFRP strip were more than 100 times larger than those of the concrete beams without reinforcement. Although the concrete beams without the CFRP strips collapsed instantly, the concrete beams reinforced with the CFRP strips gradually failed, which were similar to the plastic behavior of metals. This result means that the residents can afford to escape safely from the houses in the event of possible earthquakes. The experimental results were compared with the analytical ones obtained from the composite beam theory and the failure criterion. Both results showed good agreement and the effectiveness of base concrete reinforced with CFRP strips was demonstrated.
Analysis of wastewater management in the Florida Keys
Authors: Sleasman Katherine
Published: June 2011

Maintaining water quality in the Florida Keys is vital to the area’s economy. However, the lack of sewage infrastructure has degraded nearshore water quality. The Monroe County Year 2010 Comprehensive Plan outlines strategies to improve sewage infrastructure to meet the State of Florida’s 2010 effluent standards. This paper assesses the progress of the Monroe County Year 2010 Comprehensive Plan in the context of Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) by means of surveys, semi-structured interviews, and secondary data. Monroe County’s plan included aspects of ICM and emphasized a community-based approach for incorporated and unincorporated areas to meet effluent standards. However, areas throughout the Florida Keys faced financial constraints and lack of resources in executing public work initiatives. Variability in management plans developed by municipalities demonstrated the need for a top down approach. The State of Florida and Monroe County could have provided more guidance and resources, and facilitated communication between the various entities to help complete objectives by the 2010 deadline.
Constitutional Barriers and the Privatization of Public Utilities in Rich Democracies
Authors: Schmitt Carina , Obinger Herbert
Published: June 2011

This paper examines the impact of constitutional barriers on the privatization of public utilities in 21 OECD-countries between 1980 and 2008. We present new and improved indicators for privatization and constitutional barriers. Three empirical findings stand out: first, national privatization trajectories differ across both countries and sectors. Second, there is a significant cross-national variation in terms of constitutional provisions related to public utilities which, thirdly, constitute important impediments to privatization.
Riordan matrices and sums of harmonic numbers
Authors: Munarini Emanuele
Published: June 2011

We obtain a general identity involving the row-sums of a Riordan matrix and
the harmonic numbers. From this identity, we deduce several particular
identities involving numbers of combinatorial interest, such as generalized
Fibonacci and Lucas numbers, Catalan numbers, binomial and trinomial
coefficients, Stirling numbers. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification:
Primary: 05A15; Secondary: 05A10.
The Australian Early Development Index: Reshaping Family—Child Relationships in Early Childhood Education
Authors: Peers Chris
Published: June 2011

This article addresses the cultural significance of the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) and discusses changes that the discourse of this instrument makes to the way in which the child is conceptualised. It analyses the technological function of the AEDI to examine how it makes the child a universal resource for human capital. The article examines messages in promotional and research literature surrounding the AEDI that represent it as a reliable statistical instrument which will promote social justice and equity for young children and their families. The scholarly discourse has so far failed to address the broader context of neo-liberal economic and social reform from which the AEDI — and its Canadian predecessor, the Early Development Instrument (EDI) — initially emerged. The article therefore interrogates the EDI and the AEDI as mechanisms for refining and expanding markets in the management and regulation of children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their accompanying vulnerability. These market expansions draw upon econometric theoretical sources, leading to conceptual changes relating to understandings of children and new concepts and practices for the early childhood education sector. Discourses surrounding the use of the AEDI are informed, in part, by perceptions about the breakdown of the family and the impact this will have for long-term sources of social and economic cohesion. The article examines the symbolism entailed by the ways in which the literature surrounding the AEDI and EDI addresses moral and civil sources of authority in modern Western civilisation.
Social Media in Health Research: An Example from Childcare Provider Message Boards
Authors: Lynch Meghan
Published: June 2011

Social media sites, such as message boards and blogs, provide innovative data sources for researchers as these sites feature people sharing advice and discussing issues in a public arena. Research has found the online context can encourage people to reveal more information than do such traditional methods as interviews or focus groups. However, despite the important role the Internet plays as a medium for obtaining and discussing health information, little research has examined how people discuss children's health on social media sites. The present exploratory study begins to fill the gap in this research by comparing how childcare providers discuss their nutritional attitudes and behaviours on two online childcare provider message boards to how providers discuss these topics in interviews. Following further refinement, future research and practice in children's behaviour development should benefit from this new approach to collecting data.
‘I'm Proud to Be Me’: Health, Community and Schooling
Authors: Burrows Lisette
Published: June 2011

Health reportage in New Zealand's popular and professional media regularly features large, avowedly inactive, indigenous and/or ‘poor’ people failing to nurture their children properly on account of their size. While well-meaning government and school-based initiatives explicitly target these so-called ‘high-need’ communities, seldom is there any considered understanding of what the young people consigned to these groupings understand as good ‘health’ nor the variety of ways in which they take up imperatives designed for them. Drawing on ethnographic work across two New Zealand school sites I explore the ways children are making sense of and responding to new health imperatives, given the very different material conditions and interests that contour their positions within cultural and class groupings. Analysis suggests that children can and do critically interrogate the veracity of dominant discourses, reassess them, reconstruct existing knowledge and read corporeality and admonishments to move and eat in particular ways through cultural lenses that, in some cases permit them to retain some sense of themselves as ‘well’, and in other cases, do not. Some ‘youth’ (cultures and class positions) are ‘abjectified’ while others are empowered and endorsed by prevailing healthscapes and their recontextualisation though the practices of schooling and family life.
Obesity, Health and Physical Education: A Bourdieuean Perspective
Authors: Fitzpatrick Katie
Published: June 2011

Assumptions and interventions about the so-called ‘obesity epidemic’ pervade health and physical education classrooms and national policy agendas in New Zealand, as they do elsewhere in the Western world. In contrast, critical scholars in these subjects advocate an active deconstruction of the tenets and presumptions underpinning public and media conceptions of obesity, related body norms and physical activity and nutrition interventions. This article employs Bourdieu's notions of field, capital and habitus to argue that each of these approaches emanates from a different field of cultural production. Drawing on a critical ethnographic study of a low socioeconomic school in South Auckland, New Zealand, I also argue that acknowledging students' own cultural fields might offer a way forward.
Heterozygous Inactivation of the Na/Ca Exchanger Increases Glucose-Induced Insulin Release, β-Cell Proliferation, and Mass
Authors: Nguidjoe Evrard , Sokolow Sophie , Bigabwa Serge , Pachera Nathalie , D'Amico Eva , Allagnat Florent , Vanderwinden Jean-Marie , Sener Abdullah , Manto Mario , Depreter Marianne , Mast Jan , Joanny Geraldine , Montanya Eduard , Rahier Jacques , Cardozo Alessandra K. , Eizirik Décio L. , Schurmans Stéphane , Herchuelz André
Published: June 2011

OBJECTIVE

We have previously shown that overexpression of the Na-Ca exchanger (NCX1), a protein responsible for Ca2+ extrusion from cells, increases β-cell programmed cell death (apoptosis) and reduces β-cell proliferation. To further characterize the role of NCX1 in β-cells under in vivo conditions, we developed and characterized mice deficient for NCX1.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Biologic and morphologic methods (Ca2+ imaging, Ca2+ uptake, glucose metabolism, insulin release, and point counting morphometry) were used to assess β-cell function in vitro. Blood glucose and insulin levels were measured to assess glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity in vivo. Islets were transplanted under the kidney capsule to assess their performance to revert diabetes in alloxan-diabetic mice.

RESULTS

Heterozygous inactivation of Ncx1 in mice induced an increase in glucose-induced insulin release, with a major enhancement of its first and second phase. This was paralleled by an increase in β-cell proliferation and mass. The mutation also increased β-cell insulin content, proinsulin immunostaining, glucose-induced Ca2+ uptake, and β-cell resistance to hypoxia. In addition, Ncx1+/− islets showed a two- to four-times higher rate of diabetes cure than Ncx1+/+ islets when transplanted into diabetic animals.

CONCLUSIONS

Downregulation of the Na/Ca exchanger leads to an increase in β-cell function, proliferation, mass, and resistance to physiologic stress, namely to various changes in β-cell function that are opposite to the major abnormalities seen in type 2 diabetes. This provides a unique model for the prevention and treatment of β-cell dysfunction in type 2 diabetes and after islet transplantation.
Peripheral and Islet Interleukin-17 Pathway Activation Characterizes Human Autoimmune Diabetes and Promotes Cytokine-Mediated β-Cell Death
Authors: Arif Sefina , Moore Fabrice , Marks Katherine , Bouckenooghe Thomas , Dayan Colin M. , Planas Raquel , Vives-Pi Marta , Powrie Jake , Tree Timothy , Marchetti Piero , Huang Guo Cai , Gurzov Esteban N. , Pujol-Borrell Ricardo , Eizirik Decio L. , Peakman Mark
Published: June 2011

OBJECTIVE

CD4 T-cells secreting interleukin (IL)-17 are implicated in several human autoimmune diseases, but their role in type 1 diabetes has not been defined. To address the relevance of such cells, we examined IL-17 secretion in response to β-cell autoantigens, IL-17A gene expression in islets, and the potential functional consequences of IL-17 release for β-cells.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Peripheral blood CD4 T-cell responses to β-cell autoantigens (proinsulin, insulinoma-associated protein, and GAD65 peptides) were measured by IL-17 enzyme-linked immunospot assay in patients with new-onset type 1 diabetes (n = 50). mRNA expression of IL-17A and IFNG pathway genes was studied by qRT-PCR using islets obtained from subjects who died 5 days and 10 years after diagnosis of disease, respectively, and from matched control subjects. IL-17 effects on the function of human islets, rat β-cells, and the rat insulinoma cell line INS-1E were examined.

RESULTS

A total of 27 patients (54%) showed IL-17 reactivity to one or more β-cell peptides versus 3 of 30 (10%) control subjects (P = 0.0001). In a single case examined close to diagnosis, islet expression of IL17A, RORC, and IL22 was detected. It is noteworthy that we show that IL-17 mediates significant and reproducible enhancement of IL-1β/interferon (IFN)-γ–induced and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α/IFN-γ–induced apoptosis in human islets, rat β-cells, and INS-1E cells, in association with significant upregulation of β-cell IL17RA expression via activation of the transcription factors STAT1 and nuclear factor (NF)-κB.

CONCLUSIONS

Circulating IL-17+ β-cell–specific autoreactive CD4 T-cells are a feature of type 1 diabetes diagnosis. We disclose a novel pathway to β-cell death involving IL-17 and STAT1 and NF-κB, rendering this cytokine a novel disease biomarker and potential therapeutic target.