bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Increased Risk of Stroke After a Herpes Zoster Attack
Authors: Kang Jiunn-Horng , Ho Jau-Der , Chen Yi-Hua , Lin Herng-Ching
Published: October 2009

Background and Purpose—

Varicella zoster virus-induced vasculopathy and postherpes zoster attack stroke syndromes have been reported previously; nevertheless, data regarding the exact prevalence and risk of stroke occurring postherpes zoster attack are still lacking. This study aims to investigate the frequency and risk of stroke after a herpes zoster attack using a nationwide, population-based study of a retrospective cohort design.

Method—

A total of 7760 patients who had received treatment for herpes zoster between 1997 and 2001 were included and matched with 23 280 randomly selected subjects. A 1-year stroke-free survival rate was then estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. After adjusting for potential confounders, Cox proportional hazard regressions were carried out to compute the adjusted 1-year survival rate.

Results—

Of the sampled patients, 439 patients (1.41%) developed strokes within the 1-year follow-up period, that is, 133 individuals (1.71% of the patients with herpes zoster) from the study cohort and 306 individuals (1.31% of patients in the comparison cohort) from the comparison cohort. The log rank test indicated that patients with herpes zoster had significantly lower 1-year stroke-free survival rates than the control (
P
<0.001). The adjusted hazard ratios of stroke after herpes zoster and herpes zoster ophthalmicus during the 1-year follow-up period were 1.31 and 4.28, respectively.

Conclusion—

The risk for stroke increased after a zoster attack. Although varicella zoster virus vasculopathy is a well-documented complication that may induce a stroke postherpes zoster attack, it does not fully account for the unexpectedly high risk of stroke in these patients.
Lack of Association Between the Cholesteryl Ester Transfer Protein Gene—TaqIB Polymorphism and Coronary Restenosis Following Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty and Stenting: A Pilot Study
Authors: Kaestner Sabine , Patsouras Nikolaos , Spathas Dionysios H. , Flordellis Christodoulos S. , Manolis Antonis S.
Published: October 2009

Background: The most widely studied variation at the cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) gene locus is a silent base change called the Thermobius aquaticus IB (TaqIB) polymorphism. TaqIB has been shown to affect levels/activity of CETP, plasma levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and to contribute to the risk of developing atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease (CHD). Ongoing studies are investigating possible associations between CETP gene polymorphisms and the development of coronary restenosis following percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) and stenting.

Methods and Results: The primary objective of the present study was to investigate the frequency of TaqIB-polymorphism, and a possible association with post-PTCA coronary restenosis, in 204 Greek patients who had undergone PTCA and stenting. As a secondary objective, the analysis was extended to explore possible interacting or additive effects by various CHD risk factors, and a deletion in the α2B-adrenergic receptor gene. The frequency of TaqIB was 54%, similar to the frequency of the polymorphism in a group of 35 healthy controls.

Conclusions: The results from this study do not indicate that the TaqIB variation at the CETP gene locus is a significant predictor for assessing the risk of developing coronary restenosis following PTCA and stenting. This result was not affected when considering any one of the additionally studied factors.
N-Terminal ProBNP Distribution and Correlations With Biological Characteristics in Apparently Healthy Greek Population: ATTICA Study
Authors: Fragopoulou Elizabeth , Panagiotakos Demosthenes B. , Pitsavos Christos , Chrysohoou Christina , Nomikos Tzortzis , Evangelopoulos Angelos , Katsagoni Christina , Skoumas John , Antonopoulou Smaragdi , Stefanadis Christodoulos
Published: October 2009

Brain natriuretic peptides are widely used as biomarkers of cardiovascular diseases and mainly heart failure. However, these markers are often found to be high even in apparently healthy participants, and little is known about which factors contribute to physiological change in plasma brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and amino-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NTproBNP) concentration in general populations. In this study, a random subsample of the ATTICA study was used (486 individuals) and serum NT-proBNP was measured. Approximately 20% of the participants had no detectable NT-proBNP values. Women had higher values of NT-proBNP than men (median [25th-75th percentiles]: 30.2 [15.8-54.3] vs 14.9 [4.0-28.1] pg/mL, P < .001]. Amino-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide values were positively correlated with age (ρ = .140, P = .006) and inversely with body mass index (BMI; ρ = —.142, P = .005), creatinine (Cr) clearance (ρ = —.349, P < .001), and hemoglobin (ρ = —.249, P < .001) values. Linear regression analysis revealed that gender is the main contributor of NT-proBNP levels, followed by age, BMI, and Cr values.
Educational Attainment of Haitian Immigrants
Authors: Nicolas Guerda , DeSilva Angela , Rabenstein Kelly
Published: October 2009

Educational attainment is often linked to upward mobility in the United States. As a result, current research has focused on the educational attainment of various racial groups, including Black Americans. However, few studies have examined the various ethnic and immigrant groups that comprise the Black population. To address this gap, the current article focuses on the educational attainment of Haitian immigrants ( n = 150) living in the United States. Results indicate that socioeconomic status (SES) is a predictor of educational attainment but, contrary to previous research, gender and aspirations are unrelated. Implications for educators and policy makers are discussed.
Are Positive Alternative Medical Therapy Trials Credible?
Authors: Barker Bausell R.
Published: October 2009

Forty-five complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) efficacy randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from high-impact medical journals (NEJM, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, and Archives of Internal Medicine) were reviewed based on their meeting three validity criteria (the existence of a placebo control, moderate attrition rates, and 50 or more participants per group). Of the 26 efficacy trials meeting all three criteria, only 2 (7.7%) were judged to be positive (i.e., the alternative therapy was significantly superior to its placebo control), while over half (55.5%) of the 19 trials that failed to meet one or more of these criteria reported positive results (p < .001). Of the two positive high-validity trials, one was funded and authored by the herbal company marketing the product tested and one used a placebo-control group of questionable credibility. This analysis is consistent with the hypothesis that CAM therapies are no more effective than placebos when adequate experimental control is present.
The Role of Parents and Family Members in ART Treatment Adherence: Evidence From Thailand
Authors: Knodel John , Kespichayawattana Jiraporn , Saengtienchai Chanpen , Wiwatwanich Suvinee
Published: October 2009

High levels of treatment adherence are crucial for the success of expanding antiretroviral therapy (ART) treatment programs everywhere. Augmenting adherence through treatment supporters is one promising strategy. Most discussions focus on peers, especially members of persons with HIV/AIDS (PHA) groups, for this purpose. Far less attention is given to family members and especially older age parents. Yet ART recipients often live with or nearby parents and other family members who are highly motivated to ensure the treatment’s success. This study examines the extent that family members, especially parents, assist adherence in Thailand. Results indicate that most adult ART patients live with family members and more than half live with or in the same locality as a parent. Family members, including parents, commonly remind ART patients to take medications, especially if coresident. Moreover, parents often remind patients to get resupplies and sometimes accompany them to appointments. Clearly close family members, including parents, should be explicitly incorporated into adherence augmentation programs and provided adequate information to facilitate their role as long-term adherence partners, not only in Thailand but wherever ART recipients are closely linked to family members through living and caregiving arrangements.
Au cœur de notre corps
Authors: Grauby Françoise
Published: October 2009

Cet article se propose d’interroger le discours psycho-corporel dans les publications du bien-être (self-help) qui rencontrent aujourd’hui un vif succès, à travers l’analyse de l’ouvrage de Marie-Lise Labonté, Au cœur de notre corps. A la lumière des observations de Philippe Hamon sur le roman réaliste, nous avons tenté de montrer que sa structure, tout autant que sa présentation du corps et de la maladie, épouse un ordre rhétorique hérité du roman réaliste. Sans être un récit littéraire, ce récit de guérison quasi-miraculeuse partage des préoccupations voisines: nourri de langage reichien et de savoirs intuitifs sur le corps, le récit rejoint un principe organisateur emprunté au roman réaliste — la logique du récit classique, son enchaînement, sa dramatisation tiennent en échec le hasard. Le corps y apparaît transparent, déchiffrable, authentique. Un nouvel imaginaire corporel populaire naît de ces déchiffrements: formaté selon des lois rhétoriques précises, ce discours impose un corps idéalisé, fait rimer maladie avec échec et renvoie ultimement le patient à lui-même.
La Côte d’Azur
Authors: Woloshyn Tania Anne
Published: October 2009

This interdisciplinary article explores aesthetic and medical conceptions of the Côte d’Azur during the nineteenth century, discussing texts and images by French writers, invalids, tourists, physicians and artists. Through words and images, medico-tourist guides perpetuated a myth of the Côte d’Azur as the privileged site of beauty and health, especially to its visiting invalids, who sought in the climate a miraculous natural cure. Poetic descriptions of the landscape’s naturally regenerative potential pervade these works, not only by physicians and tourist writers but by the invalids themselves experiencing a pleasurable recovery on the coast. This article argues that such descriptions were, consciously or not, couched in a medical rhetoric, where the landscape’s typical topographic elements were understood as both beautiful and healing. In exploring these diverse visual and literary texts, the article shows how art and medicine intertwined in common French perceptions and imaginations of this landscape, c. 1860—1900.
Pain in Youths With Neuromuscular Disease
Authors: Engel Joyce M. , Kartin Deborah , Carter Gregory T. , Jensen Mark P. , Jaffe Kenneth M.
Published: October 2009

To examine the prevalence and characteristics of pain in children with neuromuscular disease (NMD), 42 youths with NMD underwent a comprehensive evaluation including a detailed intake interview and structured questionnaire that included demographic and functional data. Youths who reported chronic pain were further queried about pain characteristics, locations, and intensity using an 11-point numerical rating scale and a modified Brief Pain Inventory (BPI). The sample consisted of 24 males (57%) and 18 females (43%), ages ranging from 9 to 20 years (M = 14.8, SD = 2.96). Participants included 14 (37%) with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, 6 (14%) with myotonic dystrophy, 2 (5%) with Becker dystrophy, 2 (5%) with limb-girdle dystrophy, 2 (5%) with congenital muscular dystrophy, 1 (2%) facioscapulohumeral, and 15 (36%) were classified as ‘‘other NMD.’’ Twenty-one (50%) were ambulatory; 26 (62%) used power wheelchairs/scooters, 9 (2%) used manual wheelchairs, 3 (.07%) used crutches/canes, and 1 (2%) used a walker. A total of 23 (55%) of the youths reported having chronic pain. Current pain intensity was 1.30 (range = 0-6), mean pain intensity over the past week was 2.39 (range = 0-7), mean pain duration was 8.75 hours (SD = 12.84). Pain in the legs was most commonly reported and 83% reported using pain medications. This study indicates that chronic pain is a significant problem in youths with NMD. These data strongly support making comprehensive pain assessment and management an integral part of the standard of care for youths with NMD.
Medical Students’ Views and Ideas About Palliative Care Communicatio Training
Authors: Wittenberg-Lyles Elaine M. , Goldsmith Joy , Ragan Sandra L. , Sanchez-Reilly Sandra
Published: October 2009

This study focused on the undergraduate medical student to identify views and ideas held toward palliative care communication training, pedagogical approaches to this training, and its perceived effectiveness and use in the medical field. Two focus groups consisting of fourth-year medical students were conducted, and their responses were analyzed using grounded theory categorization. Results indicated that students: (a) prefer to learn nonverbal communication techniques, (b) believe that natural ability and experience outweigh communication curriculum, (c) view the skill of breaking bad news as largely dependent on knowledge and expertise, and (d) prefer curriculum on palliative care and hospice to consist of information (eg, advance directives) rather than communication skills. Implications for these interpretive themes are discussed as well as future research and practice.
A Verbal Planning Impairment in Adult ADHD Indexed by Script Generation Tasks
Authors: Desjardins Catherine , Scherzer Peter , Braun Claude M. J. , Godbout Lucie , Poissant Hélène
Published: October 2009

Objective: Though juvenile and adult ADHD cases are well known to have a nonverbal planning impairment, a verbal-planning impairment has been demonstrated only in juvenile ADHD. The purpose of this investigation is to determine whether a verbal planning impairment also characterizes adult ADHD. Methods: A cohort of 30 adult ADHD clients of a university psychological clinic are compared to 30 age-, education-, gender-, and IQ-matched persons recruited from the general population who did not have ADHD. The dependent measure is a set of 6 paper/pencil 10-item script generation tasks. Results: The findings reveal that the ADHD cohort was significantly impaired on the script task and the script task correlated significantly with severity of ADHD (CAARS index + WURS), whereas several neuropsychological measures of executive function (Stroop, COWA, Rey’s Complex Figure, D2, CVLT, CPT-II) did not. Findings further showed that the script measure was weakly correlated with the other established neuropsychological measures of executive function ( r < .46, shared variance of less than 21%). Conclusions: On the basis of the study findings, it is concluded that verbal planning measured with script generation tasks is distinctly impaired in clinically referred adult ADHD.
Subclinical ADHD, Stress, and Coping in Romantic Relationships of University Students
Authors: Overbey Gail A. , Snell William E. , Callis Kenneth E.
Published: October 2009

Objective: To examine how the subclinical symptoms of adult ADHD and those of oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD) affect relationship satisfaction and stress and to determine whether different patterns of coping strategies emerge when undergraduates have symptoms of one or both disorders. Method: Participants ( N = 497) complete self-report surveys assessing ADHD and ODD symptoms, relationship satisfaction, stress, and coping strategies used in their intimate relationships. Results: ADHD and ODD symptoms are significantly related to a number of stressors and different patterns of coping strategies. University students with symptoms of both ADHD and ODD display a different pattern of stressors and different patterns of coping than those with symptoms of ADHD only. Conclusion: Screenings for both ADHD and ODD and the provision of services that offer students more constructive coping alternatives to deal with stress in their intimate relationships are needed on university campuses.
Capitalists, managers, professionals and mortality: Findings from the Barcelona Social Class and All Cause Mortality Longitudinal Study
Authors: Muntaner Carles , Borrell Carme , Solà Judit , Marì-Dell'Olmo Marc , Chung Haejoo , Rodríguez-Sanz Maica , Benach Joan , Noh Samuel
Published: October 2009

Aims: To examine the effects of Neo-Marxian social class (i.e. measured as relations of control over productive assets) and potential mediators such as labour-market position, work organization, material deprivation and health behaviours upon mortality in Barcelona, Spain. Methods: Longitudinal data from the Barcelona 2000 Health Interview Survey (n = 7526) with follow-up interviews through the municipal census in 2008 (95.97% response rate) were used. Using data on relations of property, organizational power, and education, social classes were grouped according to Wright’s scheme: capitalists, petit bourgeoisie, managers, supervisors, and skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Results: Social class, measured as relations of control over productive assets, is an important predictor of mortality among working-class positions for men but not for women. Workers (hazard ratio 1.60, 95% confidence interval 1.10—2.35), managers and small employers had a higher risk of death than capitalists. Conclusions: The extensive use of conventional gradient measures of social stratification has neglected sociological measurements of social class conceptualized as relations of control over productive assets. This concept is capable of explaining how social inequalities are generated. To confirm the protective effect of the capitalist class position and the ‘‘contradictory class location hypothesis’’, additional efforts are needed to properly measure class among low-level supervisors, capitalists, managers, and small employers.
Explaining the unexplained: warranting disbelief in the paranormal
Authors: Lamont Peter , Coelho Claudia , Mckinlay Andrew
Published: October 2009

Psychologists have studied paranormal belief for over a century, but have been concerned with belief in the paranormal rather than disbelief. However, disbelief in the paranormal is a position in its own right and, for many, by no means a self-evident position. An avowal of disbelief is, therefore, a social phenomenon that may involve some interesting discursive work. This article examines the discourse of self-ascribed ‘sceptics’, and analyses how they warrant their expressed position when faced with an ostensibly paranormal event for which they cannot provide a ‘normal’ explanation. We show how, for example, through the use of ‘definitely/something’ constructions, they appeal to an explanation that exists in principle, though the details are not available to them. Such devices can be seen as social and discursive forms of belief maintenance, in that they are designed to maintain a social position established through an avowal of (dis)belief.
Establishing Cause for Developing and Implementing a Broad-Based Marketing Effort for the Health Education Field
Authors: Stellefson Michael , Barry Adam , Chaney Beth H. , Chaney J. Don , Hanik Bruce
Published: October 2009

What exactly is health education? Professionals with advanced degrees in health education have most likely encountered questions such as these either during introductory coursework or from those inquiring about the field. These queries can prove quite perplexing when asked by individuals who are unaware of the health education profession. Because the act of marketing health education is crucial to the sustainability of the field, the purpose of this article is to (a) explore the issue of describing and promoting health education, (b) establish ideas that can facilitate the provision of coordinated marketing efforts, and (c) offer marketing management and implementation principles that can assist in marketing both health education and health educators. Based on this discussion, the authors suggest building mainstream consensus in regards to marketing message development and implementation to better position health education.
Oligonucleotide array discovery of polymorphisms in cultivated tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) reveals patterns of SNP variation associated with breeding
Authors: Sim Sung-Chur , Robbins Matthew D , Chilcott Charles , Zhu Tong , Francis David M
Published: October 2009

Background

Cultivated tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) has narrow genetic diversity that makes it difficult to identify polymorphisms between elite germplasm. We explored array-based single feature polymorphism (SFP) discovery as a high-throughput approach for marker development in cultivated tomato.

Results

Three varieties, FL7600 (fresh-market), OH9242 (processing), and PI114490 (cherry) were used as a source of genomic DNA for hybridization to oligonucleotide arrays. Identification of SFPs was based on outlier detection using regression analysis of normalized hybridization data within a probe set for each gene. A subset of 189 putative SFPs was sequenced for validation. The rate of validation depended on the desired level of significance (α) used to define the confidence interval (CI), and ranged from 76% for polymorphisms identified at α ≤ 10-6 to 60% for those identified at α ≤ 10-2. Validation percentage reached a plateau between α ≤ 10-4 and α ≤ 10-7, but failure to identify known SFPs (Type II error) increased dramatically at α ≤ 10-6. Trough sequence validation, we identified 279 SNPs and 27 InDels in 111 loci. Sixty loci contained ≥ 2 SNPs per locus. We used a subset of validated SNPs for genetic diversity analysis of 92 tomato varieties and accessions. Pairwise estimation of θ (F st) suggested significant differentiation between collections of fresh-market, processing, vintage, Latin American (landrace), and S. pimpinellifolium accessions. The fresh-market and processing groups displayed high genetic diversity relative to vintage and landrace groups. Furthermore, the patterns of SNP variation indicated that domestication and early breeding practices have led to progressive genetic bottlenecks while modern breeding practices have reintroduced genetic variation into the crop from wild species. Finally, we examined the ratio of non-synonymous (Ka) to synonymous substitutions (Ks) for 20 loci with multiple SNPs (≥ 4 per locus). Six of 20 loci showed ratios of Ka/Ks ≥ 0.9.

Conclusion

Array-based SFP discovery was an efficient method to identify a large number of molecular markers for genetics and breeding in elite tomato germplasm. Patterns of sequence variation across five major tomato groups provided insight into to the effect of human selection on genetic variation.
Community health needs assessment with precede-proceed model: a mixed methods study
Authors: Li Ying , Cao Jia , Lin Hui , Li Daikun , Wang Yang , He Jia
Published: October 2009

Background

Community health services in China have developed over the last few decades. In order to use limited health resources more effectively, we conducted a community health needs assessment. This aimed to provide an understanding of the community's health problems and the range of potential factors affecting risk behaviours for the priority health problems.

Methods

We used the precede-proceed model for the needs assessment. Triangulation of data, methods and researchers were employed in data collection.

Results

Main findings include: cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) were identified as the priority health problems in the study communities; risk factors associated with CVDs included smoking, physical inactivity and unhealthy eating behaviours, particularly amongst male residents with low education level; factors negatively affecting behaviours were classified into predisposing factors (limited knowledge, beliefs and lack of perceived needs), enabling factors (limited access to health promotion activities, unawareness of health promotion, lack of work-site and school health promotion, absence of health promotion related policy) and reinforcing factors (culture). Policies and organization were not perfect; there were limited staff skilled in providing health promotion in the community.

Conclusion

CVDs were identified by the communities as priority health problems. Future health programs should focus on smoking, physical inactivity and unhealthy eating behaviours. Behaviour change strategies should take predisposing factors, enabling factors and reinforcing factors into consideration. Policies, organization and human resource need strengthening.
Do neurooncological patients and their significant others agree on quality of life ratings?
Authors: Giesinger Johannes M , Golser Miriam , Erharter Astrid , Kemmler Georg , Schauer-Maurer Gabriele , Stockhammer Guenter , Muigg Armin , Hutterer Markus , Rumpold Gerhard , Holzner Bernhard
Published: October 2009

Introduction

Patients suffering from brain tumours often experience a wide range of cognitive impairments that impair their ability to report on their quality of life and symptom burden. The use of proxy ratings by significant others may be a promising alternative to gain information for medical decision making or research purposes, if self-ratings are not obtainable. Our study investigated the agreement of quality of life and symptom ratings by the patient him/herself or by a significant other.

Methods

Patients with primary brain tumours were recruited at the neurooncological outpatient unit of Innsbruck Medical University. Quality of life self- and proxy-ratings were collected using the EORTC QLQ-C30 and its brain cancer module, the QLQ-BN20.

Results

Between May 2005 and August 2007, 42 pairs consisting of a patient and his/her significant other were included in the study. Most of the employed quality of life scales showed fairly good agreement between patient- and proxy-ratings (median correlation 0.46). This was especially true for Physical Functioning, Sleeping Disturbances, Appetite Loss, Constipation, Taste Alterations, Visual Disorders, Motor Dysfunction, Communication Deficits, Hair Loss, Itchy Skin, Motor Dysfunction and Hair Loss. Worse rater agreement was found for Social Functioning, Emotional Functioning, Cognitive Functioning, Fatigue, Pain, Dyspnoea and Seizures.

Conclusion

The assessment of quality of life in brain cancer patients through ratings from their significant others seems to be a feasible strategy to gain information about certain aspects of patient's quality of life and symptom burden, if the patient is not able to provide information himself.
The evaluation of exposure risks for natural transmission of scrapie within an infected flock
Authors: Dexter Glenda , Tongue Sue C , Heasman Lindsay , Bellworthy Susan J , Davis Andrew , Moore S Jo , Simmons Marion M , Sayers A Robin , Simmons Hugh A , Matthews Danny
Published: October 2009

Background

Although the epidemiology of scrapie has been broadly understood for many years, attempts to introduce voluntary or compulsory controls to eradicate the disease have frequently failed. Lack of precision in defining the risk factors on farm has been one of the challenges to designing control strategies. This study attempted to define which parts of the annual flock management cycle represented the greatest risk of infection to naive lambs exposed to the farm environment at different times.

Results

In VRQ/VRQ lambs exposed to infected sheep at pasture or during lambing, and exposed to the buildings in which lambing took place, the attack rate was high and survival times were short. Where exposure was to pasture alone the number of sheep affected in each experimental group was reduced, and survival times were longer and related to length of exposure.

Conclusion

At the flock level, eradication and control strategies for scrapie must take into account the need to decontaminate buildings used for lambing, and to reduce (or prevent) the exposure of lambs to infected sheep, especially in the later stages of incubation, and at lambing. The potential for environmental contamination from pasture should also be considered. Genotype selection may still prove to be the only viable tool to prevent infection from contaminated pasture, reduce environmental contamination and limit direct transmission from sheep to sheep.
Differential protection by wildtype vs. organelle-specific Bcl-2 suggests a combined requirement of both the ER and mitochondria in ceramide-mediated caspase-independent programmed cell death
Authors: Deerberg Andrea , Sosna Justyna , Thon Lutz , Belka Claus , Adam Dieter
Published: October 2009

Background

Programmed cell death (PCD) is essential for development and homeostasis of multicellular organisms and can occur by caspase-dependent apoptosis or alternatively, by caspase-independent PCD (ciPCD). Bcl-2, a central regulator of apoptosis, localizes to both mitochondria and the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Whereas a function of mitochondrial and ER-specific Bcl-2 in apoptosis has been established in multiple studies, corresponding data for ciPCD do not exist.

Methods

We utilized Bcl-2 constructs specifically localizing to mitochondria (Bcl-2 ActA), the ER (Bcl-2 cb5), both (Bcl-2 WT) or the cytosol/nucleus (Bcl-2 ΔTM) and determined their protective effect on ceramide-mediated ciPCD in transiently and stably transfected Jurkat cells. Expression of the constructs was verified by immunoblots. Ceramide-mediated ciPCD was induced by treatment with human recombinant tumor necrosis factor and determined by flow cytometric measurement of propidium iodide uptake as well as by optical analysis of cell morphology.

Results

Only wildtype Bcl-2 had the ability to efficiently protect from ceramide-mediated ciPCD, whereas expression of Bcl-2 solely at mitochondria, the ER, or the cytosol/nucleus did not prevent ceramide-mediated ciPCD.

Conclusion

Our data suggest a combined requirement for both mitochondria and the ER in the induction and the signaling pathways of ciPCD mediated by ceramide.
NeMeSys: a biological resource for narrowing the gap between sequence and function in the human pathogen Neisseria meningitidis
Authors: Rusniok Christophe , Vallenet David , Floquet Stéphanie , Ewles Helen , Mouzé-Soulama Coralie , Brown Daniel , Lajus Aurélie , Buchrieser Carmen , Médigue Claudine , Glaser Philippe , Pelicic Vladimir
Published: October 2009

Background

Genome sequences, now available for most pathogens, hold promise for the rational design of new therapies. However, biological resources for genome-scale identification of gene function (notably genes involved in pathogenesis) and/or genes essential for cell viability, which are necessary to achieve this goal, are often sorely lacking. This holds true for Neisseria meningitidis, one of the most feared human bacterial pathogens that causes meningitis and septicemia.

Results

By determining and manually annotating the complete genome sequence of a serogroup C clinical isolate of N. meningitidis (strain 8013) and assembling a library of defined mutants in up to 60% of its non-essential genes, we have created NeMeSys, a biological resource for Neisseria meningitidis systematic functional analysis. To further enhance the versatility of this toolbox, we have manually (re)annotated eight publicly available Neisseria genome sequences and stored all these data in a publicly accessible online database. The potential of NeMeSys for narrowing the gap between sequence and function is illustrated in several ways, notably by performing a functional genomics analysis of the biogenesis of type IV pili, one of the most widespread virulence factors in bacteria, and by identifying through comparative genomics a complete biochemical pathway (for sulfur metabolism) that may potentially be important for nasopharyngeal colonization.

Conclusions

By improving our capacity to understand gene function in an important human pathogen, NeMeSys is expected to contribute to the ongoing efforts aimed at understanding a prokaryotic cell comprehensively and eventually to the design of new therapies.
States of Emergency, States of Freedom: Woolf, History, and the Novel
Authors: Barber Stephen M.
Published: October 2009

This essay argues that Woolf's late work is both the condition and the effect of her turn in the early 1930s to an aesthetics of existence. Far from signifying a withdrawal from the world, Woolf's “philosophy of the free soul” intensified her relationship with politics. The two central statements of this philosophy are The Years (1937) and Three Guineas (1938), the latter of which I suggest is not merely an antiwar pamphlet (according to critical convention) but also an anti-programmatic ethical treatise for living what Michel Foucault calls “the non-fascist life.” Criticism almost invariably claims that The Years is a failure (aesthetically and personally for Woolf, whose initial vision of the novel was that it would amount to her summa). This essay argues to the contrary: Woolf abandoned her plan to set down her summa (“all I think, feel, despise, like, admire, hate, & so on …”) when she determined to use the writing for her novel to conceive the new forms of power that crystallized during the 1930s as fascism intensified across Europe. Whereas critics tend to regard Three Guineas as the lucid statement of that which The Years allegedly could not articulate, I argue that during the five years Woolf took to write the novel, she searched for and found an aesthetic form to enact her new critical ontology and that that aesthetic centrally informs the ethics of Three Guineas. Both works theorize possible states of freedom to be occupied and enacted in states of emergency.
Fictions of the Global
Authors: Barnard Rita
Published: October 2009

If, as Benedict Anderson has argued, the realist novel has a particularly close relationship to the nation, what kind of narrative form would be best suited to transnational or even global fictions? This essay proposes a few answers to this question by looking first at what Roger Ebert has called “hyperlink cinema,” a form that emerging directors like Alexandro Gonzáles Iñárritu have used to connect narratives set in widely disparate locations (the film Babel is my case in point). The essay then analyzes David Mitchell's Ghostwritten as a “hypertext” novel, pointing out how its thematic concerns and formal structures, especially its concern with point of view and language, make this novel a global fiction of sorts. The novel's often criticized science fiction elements in particular can be elucidated, I argue, by Ulrich Beck's utopian observation that “it is the future, not the past” that integrates the cosmopolitan age.
How the Novel Became Middle Class: A History of Histories of the Novel
Authors: Boulukos George
Published: October 2009

The rise of the middle class in eighteenth-century England has long been called into question in British historiography. This essay, following the lead of Dror Wahrman's Imagining the Middle Class, reads the significance of claims linking the novel and the middle class rather than offering a more accurate social history of the novel. The essay traces histories of the novel throughout the nineteenth century, from the moment of the “institution of the novel” at its beginning to the definition of the genre as the cultural expression of a rising “middle class” of puritan merchants at the century's close. Ultimately, I argue, the case for the middle-class novel is best read as an allegorical defense of the emergent English departments as they replace gentleman-amateur lecturers with professionalized professors, displace the Aristocratic tradition of classics, and work to serve a rapidly expanding group of business-oriented university students.
The Potter's Thumb/The Writer's Hand: Manual Production and Victorian Colonial Narratives
Authors: Briefel Aviva
Published: October 2009

This essay argues that by the second half of the nineteenth century, British artists and writers succumbed to “colonial-hand envy,” marked by a desire to claim the authenticity of South Asian manual productions. This condition flourished in a climate that mourned the figurative amputations of English artisans, who had supposedly lost their hands to the standardization of the machine. The Indian hand offered access to traditional forms of craftsmanship that England was believed to have forsaken through industrialization. Contemporary critics fantasized about the effectiveness of the Indian hand if appropriated by the British corpus. They described this hand as a tool that could be detached from the rest of the Indian worker's body, which they defined through its general inefficacy. This model appealed to British novelists as well as artists, who fantasized about the more authentic forms of authorship that might emerge from a seizure of the Indian hand. I explore this fantasy in Flora Annie Steel's Anglo Indian novel The Potter's Thumb (1894), a text that simultaneously warns against the implications of creating a hybrid British and South Asian creative body. I conclude that her novel represents a late nineteenth-century struggle to define authorship as a form of production inspired by Eastern manual artistry, thus forcing us to reconceptualize the popular phrase “craft of writing” in transcultural as well as transgeneric terms.
Expansion, Interruption, Autoethnography: Toward Disorienting Fiction, Part 2
Authors: Buzard James
Published: October 2009

The thesis of my 2005 book Disorienting Fiction: The Autoethnographic Work of Nineteenth-Century British Novels is gestured at by the three words of this essay's main title: nineteenth-century Britain's imperial expansion is the ultimate context in which to make sense of the nineteenth-century novel's apparent commitment to an autoethnographic enterprise aimed at writing into existence a delimited and distinctive culture for the English or even the British people at a time when there was every encouragement for them to regard their way of life as exhausted in identification with a globally exportable “Civilization” or capital-C “Culture” itself. That delimiting impulse found expression in what I call the “self-interrupting” features prominent in Romantic-era and Victorian narrative. This essay considers the challenges facing a planned sequel to Disorienting Fiction that would extend that thesis from the later nineteenth century into the heyday of modernism.
The Consular Service and US Literature: Nathaniel Hawthorne Abroad
Authors: Claybaugh Amanda
Published: October 2009

It is a surprising fact of literary history that many of the most important nineteenth-century authors served, at some point in their careers, as US consul. The list of these authors includes James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, James Russell Lowell, William Dean Howells, James Weldon Johnson, and Bret Harte. These literary consuls prompt us to think in new ways about the relation between literature and the state—and also about the various forms that national identification can take. Focusing in particular on the case of Nathaniel Hawthorne, I argue that it was while serving as US consul in Liverpool that Hawthorne first came to think of himself as a national, rather than a regional, writer. But this national identity took two different forms: one that was grounded in the customs and traditions, culture and commitments that make up the nation and another that was grounded, more surprisingly, in the official apparatus of the national state.
Sleep Deprived and Ultramodern: How Novels Turned Dream Girls into Insomniacs
Authors: Cucullu Lois
Published: October 2009

Following Bourdieu's lead in The Logic of Practice that “[t]he body believes in what it plays at,” this essay argues that novels help condition women to the new temporality of the late modern period, that of modern sleeplessness and overblown desire. In the same fin de siècle decade in which an emergent fashion industry summons women to abandon the corset in public and enter the fantasy worlds of modern dress designs that accentuate the body and stimulate its desires, so too are novelists issuing similar summons. Such sensational novels as Bram Stoker's Dracula and George du Maurier's Trilby that so enthralled readers make women's sexual awakening dependent on their falling into dream states that override consciousness to highlight the body and unleash its innate desires. Revolving around depraved seductions, these somnambulist thrillers help orchestrate modern women's sexual turn at the close of the nineteenth century via corsetless ingenues somnambulating alone in public after dark. These popular fictions converge with material culture in the dress reforms of fashion designers to advance women's increased mobility and sexual license—but at a cost. Together they connect women to the ongoing commodification of sleep that we associate with the restless somatology of the metropolitan indigene of late modernity. That modern restlessness and unfettered desire become internalized in succeeding decades is nowhere more categorically rendered than in the restless soliloquy with its manic display of female desire delivered at the conclusion of James Joyce's Ulysses by a sleepless Molly Bloom.
The Return of the Referent in Recent North American Fiction: Neoliberalism and Narratives of Extreme Oppression
Authors: Elliott Jane
Published: October 2009

Focusing on Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, this essay examines what I term “dramas of immediacy” in recent North American fiction. Postmodern novels of the 1980s and 1990s were defined in part by their interest in the way in which narrative shaped our experience, particularly in instances of extreme oppression; considering any straightforward attempt to represent violence as a reenactment of the violence in question, these novels substituted complex meta-analysis of the way we remember and narrativize trauma for representation of the trauma itself. In contrast, I suggest, Oryx and Crake and other recent novels are reversing this process, drawing the fleshly reality of suffering to the immediate present of the text through various mechanisms of form and content. Placing this shift in relation to poststructuralist theory, I argue that maintaining an ethical distance from the oppressed other was the signature gesture of postmodern anti-instrumentality; given this tradition, nothing says the end of anti-instrumentality quite like the immediacy of abject, oppressed bodies. I read Oryx and Crake as a novel about the crisis of the anti-instrumental impulse, arguing that its curiously formulaic design offers another means by which it dramatizes the poverty of the anti-instrumental tradition in the current political landscape. Ultimately, I suggest, we may understand these dramas of immediacy, and the related interest in those suffering from human rights abuses, as a symptomatic response to neoliberalism, which has seemingly rendered the tradition of anti-instrumentalism obsolete.
Recruitment of Polycomb group complexes and their role in the dynamic regulation of cell fate choice
Authors: Schuettengruber Bernd , Cavalli Giacomo
Published: October 2009

Polycomb group (PcG) protein complexes dynamically define cellular identity through the regulation of key developmental genes. Important advances in the PcG field have come from genome-wide mapping studies in a variety of tissues and cell types that have analyzed PcG protein complexes, their associated histone marks and putative mechanisms of PcG protein recruitment. We review how these analyses have contributed to our understanding of PcG protein complex targeting to chromatin and consider the importance of diverse PcG protein complex composition for gene regulation. Finally, we focus on the dynamics of PcG protein complex action during cell fate transitions and on the implications of histone modifications for cell lineage commitment.
Direct activation of a notochord cis-regulatory module by Brachyury and FoxA in the ascidianCiona intestinalis
Authors: Passamaneck Yale J. , Katikala Lavanya , Perrone Lorena , Dunn Matthew P. , Oda-Ishii Izumi , Di Gregorio Anna
Published: October 2009

The notochord is a defining feature of the chordate body plan. Experiments in ascidian, frog and mouse embryos have shown that co-expression of Brachyury and FoxA class transcription factors is required for notochord development. However, studies on the cis-regulatory sequences mediating the synergistic effects of these transcription factors are complicated by the limited knowledge of notochord genes and cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) that are directly targeted by both. We have identified an easily testable model for such investigations in a 155-bp notochord-specific CRM from the ascidian Ciona intestinalis. This CRM contains functional binding sites for both Ciona Brachyury (Ci-Bra) and FoxA (Ci-FoxA-a). By combining point mutation analysis and misexpression experiments, we demonstrate that binding of both transcription factors to this CRM is necessary and sufficient to activate transcription. To gain insights into the cis-regulatory criteria controlling its activity, we investigated the organization of the transcription factor binding sites within the 155-bp CRM. The 155-bp sequence contains two Ci-Bra binding sites with identical core sequences but opposite orientations, only one of which is required for enhancer activity. Changes in both orientation and spacing of these sites substantially affect the activity of the CRM, as clusters of identical sites found in the Ciona genome with different arrangements are unable to activate transcription in notochord cells. This work presents the first evidence of a synergistic interaction between Brachyury and FoxA in the activation of an individual notochord CRM,and highlights the importance of transcription factor binding site arrangement for its function.
Progressive interdigital cell death: regulation by the antagonistic interaction between fibroblast growth factor 8 and retinoic acid
Authors: Hernández-Martínez Rocío , Castro-Obregón Susana , Covarrubias Luis
Published: October 2009

The complete cohort of molecules involved in interdigital cell death (ICD)and their interactions are yet to be defined. Bmp proteins, retinoic acid (RA)and Fgf8 have been previously identified as relevant factors in the control of ICD. Here we determined that downregulation of Fgf8 expression in the ectoderm overlying the interdigital areas is the event that triggers ICD,whereas RA is the persistent cell death-inducing molecule that acts on the distal mesenchyme by a mechanism involving the induction of Baxexpression. Inhibition of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (Mapk) pathway prevents the survival effect of Fgf8 on interdigital cells and the accompanying Erk1/2 phosphorylation and induction of Mkp3 expression. Fgf8 regulates the levels of RA by both decreasing the expression of Raldh2 and increasing the expression of Cyp26b1, whereas RA reduces Fgfr1 expression and Erk1/2 phosphorylation. In the mouse limb, inhibition of Bmp signaling in the mesenchyme does not affect ICD. However, noggin in the distal ectoderm induces Fgf8 expression and reduces interdigit regression. In the chick limb, exogenous noggin reduces ICD, but, when applied to the distal mesenchyme, this reduction is associated with an increase in Fgf8 expression. In agreement with the critical decline in Fgf8 expression for the activation of ICD, distal interdigital cells acquire a proximal position as interdigit regression occurs. We identified proliferating distal mesenchymal cells as those that give rise to the interdigital cells fated to die. Thus, ICD is determined by the antagonistic regulation of cell death by Fgf8 and RA and occurs through a progressive, rather than massive, cell death mechanism.