bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Gardens, Memory, and History: The Shakespeare and Modern Elizabethan Garden
Authors: Bushnell Rebecca W.
Published: April 2013

The twentieth-century garden is often a place of memory, born of nostalgia, meant to reconstruct the relationship between past and present in the act of representing it. This essay explores three types of recreations, restorations, and reconstructions of “Elizabethan gardens,” asking in each case what these recreations of old gardens were meant to accomplish, for both their creators and for their visitors, in engaging with a vision of a British past. It first examines American gardens that invoke the cultural and political ties between the United States and Britain, including American Shakespeare gardens and the Elizabethan Gardens in Roanoke, Virginia, constructed in the 1950s on the site of the first failed English colonization of America. The essay concludes with the reconstruction of a Tudor garden at Kenilworth in England, conceived as a restoration based not on our modern desires but on what is historically accurate. In each case, the designers and the visitors of the garden reach out to a past we dream is embodied in the stuff of the garden itself.
Evasive Subjects: Emily Dickinson and Charlotte Brontë’s Lucy Snowe
Authors: Mayer Nancy
Published: April 2013

Drawing on evidence from Emily Dickinson’s herbarium, letters, prose fragments, and poems, this article draws attention to the importance of bogs, swamps, and woodland pools to Dickinson’s lifelong conversation with the natural world. Adopting a methodology that combines contemporary thought about gender with an ecocritical concern for how swamps shaped Dickinson’s work, this article argues that wetland places emerge as indispensable to Dickinson’s environmental epistemology and to her poetic explorations of what it feels like to experience the natural world in a fluidly gendered body. Though Dickinson shares her fascination with the swamp with other nineteenth-century writers of the American landscape—including Susan Fenimore Cooper, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Henry David Thoreau—her creation of multiply-gendered speakers in her swamp-inspired poems offers a provocative revision of the masculine natural historical tradition that her contemporaries write within, particularly that tradition’s reliance on the female body to understand the natural world. These poems do not describe swamps; rather, they describe what it feels like to be a woman nature poet who admires the natural world at its most liminal, illegible, and wild extremes, but feels deep ambivalence toward projecting herself onto it or being identified with it. In doing so, Dickinson’s poems model a radical ecofeminism.
Cuzco, Urbs et Orbis : Rome and Garcilaso de la Vega's Self-Classicalization
Authors: Campos-Muñoz Germán
Published: April 2013

This article foregrounds the crucial importance of El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's reading of the Classical tradition in the construction of the historiographic, philosophical, and epistemological categories deployed in his work as translator and chronicler. The first section examines El Inca's stylistic and conceptual appropriation of Leone Ebreo's Dialoghi d'amore , and the application of Ebreo's Neoplatonic syncretism to a metaphysical identification between Cuzco and ancient Rome. The second section situates Garcilaso's own fascination with Julius Caesar within a literary and literal genealogy of soldiers/writers that begins with the Roman and finishes with El Inca. By using the Classics as a starting point to understand Garcilaso's negotiation of Greco-Roman, Jewish, Renaissance, Andean, Christian, and broader transatlantic categories, this essay demonstrates how El Inca both propounded and sought to embody a mestizaje far more complex than the Spanish/Indigenous duality through which he is often understood.
Fabric Frontiers: Thread, Cloth, Body, Self in Latina Literature and Film
Authors: Harper Mihaela P.
Published: April 2013

This article examines the relationship between self-formation and clothing as a contact zone in Sandra Cisneros's "Eleven," Achy Obejas's "We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?" and Alicia Partnoy's "The Denim Jacket" as well as in the film El Norte and the documentary Señorita extraviada . Exploring the cultural conflicts that unfold on the surface of clothing, I contend that these literary and cinematic texts offer richly nuanced moments in which a character interacts with a garment to illuminate the complex relations between biological bodies and social contexts. In these texts, cloth operates both as a limen and as the creased and occasionally threadbare map of a life; whether to take a garment off, put it on, throw it away, or hold on to it becomes a matter of ethical significance, of practicing a particular kind of relationship to oneself.
Recent Work on Early German Idealism (1781–1801)
Authors: Thielke Peter
Published: April 2013

This current scholarship essay currently lacks an abstract.
"King George Has Issued Too Many Pattents for Us": Property and Democracy in Jeffersonian New York
Authors: Brooke John L.
Published: April 2013

The question of a "Jeffersonian Revolution" American political behavior has been posited by a number of scholars, counterpoised to a "Jacksonian Revolution." Given the enormous variability in political practice from state to state and region to region, this problem must be examined through detailed case studies, now facilitated by data now being assembled by the "New Nation Votes Project," sponsored by the American Antiquarian Society and Tufts University. This paper arrives at an ambiguous conclusion regarding a "Jeffersonian Revolution" in New York. Turnout in New York state was powerfully shaped by the property qualifications established in the 1777 constitution, and turnout relative to those qualifications was quite high, but relative to the measure of "adult white males" was quite low. Throughout much of New York both turnout and competition between parties was low. On the other hand a series of very specific counties stand out as having tight elections and wild extremes of nominally "illegal" voting by unqualified voters between roughly 1800 and 1820. These were counties where the formative institutions and practices of the Jacksonian era were clearly being forged during the age of Jefferson and Madison.
A New Nation Votes and the Study of American Politics, 1789-1824
Authors: Sloat Caroline F.
Published: April 2013

This issue of the Journal of the Early American Republic shows what can happen when the so-called Lost Atlantis is lost no more. Historians of American electoral politics no longer have to speculate about American democracy between the years of 1787 and 1825 because there is now a collection of election results for those years. Dubbed A New Nation Votes (NNV), it presents a more comprehensive picture of the early American electoral landscape than has previously been possible.
The Other Weimar: The Warburg Circle as Hamburg School
Authors: Levine Emily J.
Published: April 2013

Part of series that examines the relationship between locality and the development of ideas, “The Other Weimar” argues that the careers of Aby Warburg, Ernst Cassirer, and Erwin Panofsky, whose ideas have recently gained recognition, ought be considered in their historical context: Weimar-era Hamburg. Drawing on the history of Hamburg as a cosmopolitan and mercantile free-city, the article argues that Hamburg provided intellectual life with unique conditions that are reflected in Warburg’s work on the Renaissance, Cassirer’s “cosmopolitan nationalist” philosophy, and Panofsky’s entrepreneurial “third way” in art history, which, despite its passage to America, bears the mark of its origins.
To Quote or not to Quote: Citation Strategies in the Encyclopédie
Authors: Edelstein Dan , Morrissey Robert , Roe Glenn
Published: April 2013

Ever since the first volume of the Encyclopédie was published in 1751, critics have complained about its liberal borrowings from other sources. This article explores some of the reasons why not citing other sources may have been an important publishing and philosophical strategy. Using a data-mining program that automatically flags likely matches between texts, we were able to identify thousands of citations and to discover clear citational patterns. Taking into account the complicated system of publishing permissions in Old Regime France, we show that many instances of non-citation occurred for books that were published anonymously and/or without a royal privilège. Accordingly, we argue that there was a “subversive style” of non-citation: by not identifying their references, contributors were able to incorporate into the Encyclopédie extensive passages of banned or forbidden books.
Revisiting Asian Values
Authors: Jenco Leigh
Published: April 2013

Asian Values discourse was widely criticized for its cultural inauthenticity and instrumentalism. However, its similarity to an early twentieth-century conversation about the values of “Eastern civilization” places it within a particular history of cultural assertion, which emerges when Asian experience defies expectations about the direction of future progress. Both discourses reformulate historically-central Chinese ideas in more general terms to carve out space between regional ethnocentrism and mimeticism of the West. Although sometimes co-opted by authoritarian elites, they nevertheless articulate “Asian” characteristics as challenges that transform, rather than traditional values which supplement, “Western” processes of modernization.
Thomas Middleton’s A Mad World, My Masters : From Script To Performance
Authors: Cordner Michael
Published: April 2013

This article takes as its cue the surprisingly scant attention paid by the 2007 Clarendon edition of Thomas Middleton's works to the stage history of his plays. Drawing on personal experiences of directing Middleton's A Mad World, My Masters at the University of York in 2011, the essay illuminates how working on the script before and during the rehearsal process raises queries as to some of the ways in which the play has traditionally been analysed, thus generating fresh perspectives on the play's overall crafting and the performance implications and potential, overlooked in the edited collection, of some of its key moments. The article also addresses some of the erroneous suppositions made by scholars about the play: the result, perhaps, of the individual play's distinctiveness being submerged in preconceptions about the presumed generic traits of the larger group of plays to which it is assigned, which leads to a serious underestimation of Middleton's ability to revisit material he has explored in earlier plays, and radically reinvent it. In focusing on interpretations of the play bodied forth in the rehearsal room rather than in critical literature, the article ultimately seeks to detach A Mad World from the generalized assumptions made about the text in order to unlock the dramatic potency which textual scholars of the play have previously masked from view.
“What’s this? Mutton?”: Food, Bodies, and Inn-Yard Performance Spaces in Early Shakespearean Drama
Authors: Templeman Sally
Published: April 2013

Between c. 1575 and 1599, formal playhouses were constructed in the yards of five London inns (four in the City and one just outside). Research by theatre historians such as Herbert Berry and David Kathman has uncovered fascinating information about these inn-yard playhouses, but, despite the fact that Shakespeare may have cut his thespian and playwriting teeth in some of them, they have suffered from critical neglect. Their location at the heart of catering establishments meant that they were characterised by uniquely aromatic smellscapes and this opens a window to a completely different kind of early modern theatre, one in which visceral and intellectual responses jostled in playgoers' bodies and minds. Evidence from The Taming of the Shrew and Titus Andronicus suggest that Shakespeare created and exploited a synergy between culinary triggers and dramatic action in these plays. Important food-based scenes in both plays are shaped to interact culinarily (both stage inn-appropriate food properties: roast meat and a meat pie) and temporally (both properties are staged when supper cooking had reached its crescendo) with these performance venues. A hungry, supper-anticipating audience bathed in cooking aromas was, for example, likely to feel unexpected empathy for a starving shrew when she, like them, is denied roast mutton. Lacking the smell to seduce them to a sympathetic mind set, this empathy would have been absent in spectators watching the play at purpose-built (and kitchen-less) theatres. Thinking about inn-yard playhouses in this way raises exciting questions about the reception of early Shakespearean drama.
Vergence Neurons Identified in the Rostral Superior Colliculus Code Smooth Eye Movements in 3D Space
Authors: Van Horn Marion R. , Waitzman David M. , Cullen Kathleen E.
Published: April 2013

The rostral superior colliculus (rSC) encodes position errors for multiple types of eye movements, including microsaccades, small saccades, smooth pursuit, and fixation. Here we address whether the rSC contributes to the development of neural signals that are suitable for controlling vergence eye movements. We use both single-unit recording and microstimulation techniques in monkey to answer this question. We found that vergence eye movements can be evoked using microstimulation in the rSC. Moreover, among the previously described neurons in rSC, we recorded a novel population of neurons that either increased (i.e., convergence neurons) or decreased (i.e., divergence neurons) their activity during vergence eye movements. In particular, these neurons dynamically encoded changes in vergence angle during vergence tracking, fixation in 3D space and the slow binocular realignment that occurs after disconjugate saccades, but were completely unresponsive during conjugate or the rapid component of disconjugate saccades (i.e., fast vergence) and conjugate smooth pursuit. Together, our microstimulation and single-neuron results suggest that the SC plays a role in the generation of signals required to precisely align the eyes toward targets in 3D space. We propose that accurate maintenance of 3D eye position, critical for the perception of stereopsis, may be mediated via the rSC.
Homeostatic Responses Fail to Correct Defective Amygdala Inhibitory Circuit Maturation in Fragile X Syndrome
Authors: Vislay Rebecca L. , Martin Brandon S. , Olmos-Serrano Jose Luis , Kratovac Sebila , Nelson David L. , Corbin Joshua G. , Huntsman Molly M.
Published: April 2013

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is a debilitating neurodevelopmental disorder thought to arise from disrupted synaptic communication in several key brain regions, including the amygdala, a central processing center for information with emotional and social relevance. Recent studies reveal defects in both excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission in mature amygdala circuits inFmr1−/ymutants, the animal model of FXS. However, whether these defects are the result of altered synaptic development or simply faulty mature circuits remains unknown. Using a combination of electrophysiological and genetic approaches, we show the development of both presynaptic and postsynaptic components of inhibitory neurotransmission in the FXS amygdala is dynamically altered during critical stages of neural circuit formation. Surprisingly, we observe that there is a homeostatic correction of defective inhibition, which, despite transiently restoring inhibitory synaptic efficacy to levels at or beyond those of control, ultimately fails to be maintained. Using inhibitory interneuron-specific conditional knock-out and rescue mice, we further reveal that fragile X mental retardation protein function in amygdala inhibitory microcircuits can be segregated into distinct presynaptic and postsynaptic components. Collectively, these studies reveal a previously unrecognized complexity of disrupted neuronal development in FXS and therefore have direct implications for establishing novel temporal and region-specific targeted therapies to ameliorate core amygdala-based behavioral symptoms.
Content Matters: Neuroimaging Investigation of Brain and Behavioral Impact of Televised Anti-Tobacco Public Service Announcements
Authors: Wang An-Li , Ruparel Kosha , Loughead James W. , Strasser Andrew A. , Blady Shira J. , Lynch Kevin G. , Romer Dan , Cappella Joseph N. , Lerman Caryn , Langleben Daniel D.
Published: April 2013

Televised public service announcements are video ads that are a key component of public health campaigns against smoking. Understanding the neurophysiological correlates of anti-tobacco ads is an important step toward novel objective methods of their evaluation and design. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the brain and behavioral effects of the interaction between content (“argument strength,” AS) and format (“message sensation value,” MSV) of anti-smoking ads in humans. Seventy-one nontreatment-seeking smokers viewed a sequence of 16 high or 16 low AS ads during an fMRI scan. Dependent variables were brain fMRI signal, the immediate recall of the ads, the immediate change in intentions to quit smoking, and the urine levels of a major nicotine metabolite cotinine at a 1 month follow-up. Whole-brain ANOVA revealed that AS and MSV interacted in the inferior frontal, inferior parietal, and fusiform gyri; the precuneus; and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dMPFC). Regression analysis showed that the activation in the dMPFC predicted the urine cotinine levels 1 month later. These results characterize the key brain regions engaged in the processing of persuasive communications and suggest that brain fMRI response to anti-smoking ads could predict subsequent smoking severity in nontreatment-seeking smokers. Our findings demonstrate the importance of the quality of content for objective ad outcomes and suggest that fMRI investigation may aid the prerelease evaluation of televised public health ads.
Defective Axonal Transport of Rab7 GTPase Results in Dysregulated Trophic Signaling
Authors: Zhang Kai , Fishel Ben Kenan Rotem , Osakada Yasuko , Xu Wei , Sinit Rachel S. , Chen Liang , Zhao Xiaobei , Chen Jia-Yun , Cui Bianxiao , Wu Chengbiao
Published: April 2013

Retrograde trophic signaling of nerve growth factor (NGF) supports neuronal survival and differentiation. Dysregulated trophic signaling could lead to various neurological disorders. Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 2B (CMT2B) is one of the most common inherited peripheral neuropathies characterized by severe terminal axonal loss. Genetic analysis of human CMT2B patients has revealed four missense point mutations in Rab7, a small GTPase that regulates late endosomal/lysosomal pathways, but the exact pathological mechanism remains poorly understood. Here, we show that these Rab7 mutants dysregulated axonal transport and diminished the retrograde signaling of NGF and its TrkA receptor. We found that all CMT2B Rab7 mutants were transported significantly faster than Rab7wtin the anterograde direction, accompanied with an increased percentile of anterograde Rab7-vesicles within axons of rat E15.5 dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. In PC12M cells, the CMT2B Rab7 mutants drastically reduced the level of surface TrkA and NGF binding, presumably by premature degradation of TrkA. On the other hand, siRNA knock-down of endogenous Rab7 led to the appearance of large TrkA puncta in enlarged Rab5-early endosomes within the cytoplasm, suggesting delayed TrkA degradation. We also show that CMT2B Rab7 mutants markedly impaired NGF-induced Erk1/2 activation and differentiation in PC12M cells. Further analysis revealed that CMT2B Rab7 mutants caused axonal degeneration in rat E15.5 DRG neurons. We propose that Rab7 mutants induce premature degradation of retrograde NGF-TrkA trophic signaling, which may potentially contribute to the CMT2B disease.
Selective Silencing of Individual Dendritic Branches by an mGlu2-Activated Potassium Conductance in Dentate Gyrus Granule Cells
Authors: Brunner János , Ster Jeanne , Van-Weert Susan , Andrási Tibor , Neubrandt Máté , Corti Corrado , Corsi Mauro , Ferraguti Francesco , Gerber Urs , Szabadics János
Published: April 2013

Group II metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGlu-IIs) modulate hippocampal information processing through several presynaptic actions. We describe a novel postsynaptic inhibitory mechanism mediated by the mGlu2 subtype that activates an inwardly rectifying potassium conductance in the dendrites of DG granule cells of rats and mice. Data from glutamate-uncaging experiments and simulations indicate that mGlu2-activated potassium conductance uniformly reduces the peak amplitude of synaptic inputs arriving in the distal two-thirds of dendrites, with only minor effects on proximal inputs. This unique shunting profile is consistent with a peak expression of the mGlu2-activated conductance at the transition between the proximal and middle third of the dendrites. Further simulations under various physiologically relevant conditions showed that when a shunting conductance was activated in the proximal third of a single dendrite, it effectively modulated input to this specific branch while leaving inputs in neighboring dendrites relatively unaffected. Therefore, the restricted expression of the mGlu2-activated potassium conductance in the proximal third of DG granule cell dendrites represents an optimal localization for achieving the opposing biophysical requirements for uniform yet selective modulation of individual dendritic branches.
Fear Extinction Induces mGluR5-Mediated Synaptic and Intrinsic Plasticity in Infralimbic Neurons
Authors: Sepulveda-Orengo Marian T. , Lopez Ana V. , Soler-Cedeño Omar , Porter James T.
Published: April 2013

Studies suggest that plasticity in the infralimbic prefrontal cortex (IL) in rodents and its homolog in humans is necessary for inhibition of fear during the recall of fear extinction. The recall of extinction is impaired by locally blocking metabotropic glutamate receptor type 5 (mGluR5) activation in IL during extinction training. This finding suggests that mGluR5 stimulation may lead to IL plasticity needed for fear extinction. To test this hypothesis, we recorded AMPA and NMDA currents, AMPA receptor (AMPAR) rectification, and intrinsic excitability in IL pyramidal neurons in slices from trained rats using whole-cell patch-clamp recording. We observed that fear extinction increases the AMPA/NMDA ratio, consistent with insertion of AMPARs into IL synapses. In addition, extinction training increased inward rectification, suggesting that extinction induces the insertion of calcium-permeable (GluA2-lacking) AMPARs into IL synapses. Consistent with this, selectively blocking calcium-permeable AMPARs with Naspm reduced the AMPA EPSCs in IL neurons to a larger degree after extinction. Extinction-induced changes in AMPA/NMDA ratio, rectification, and intrinsic excitability were blocked with an mGluR5 antagonist. These findings suggest that mGluR5 activation leads to consolidation of fear extinction by regulating the intrinsic excitability of IL neurons and modifying the composition of AMPARs in IL synapses. Therefore, impaired mGluR5 activity in IL synapses could be one factor that causes inappropriate modulation of fear expression leading to anxiety disorders.
Retinal Region of Polarization Sensitivity Switches during Ontogeny of Rainbow Trout
Authors: Sabbah Shai , Habib-Nayany Maheen F. , Dargaei Zahra , Hauser Frances E. , Kamermans Maarten , Hawryshyn Craig W.
Published: April 2013

Polarization sensitivity (PS) in vertebrate vision is controversial, perhaps because its underlying mechanism has remained obscure. An issue that might have added to the controversy is that rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), which have served as the primary model system for polarization-based orientation, lose their ability to orient relative to celestial polarized-light patterns when parr (fry) transform into migratory smolts (juveniles), which would benefit most from polarization-based orientation. Here we addressed two key questions: (1) what is the mechanism underling PS?, and (2) how can the paradoxical loss of PS in trout smolts be reconciled? We assessed PS from optic nerve recordings in parr and smolts and found that the retinal region with enhanced PS shifted from the ventral retina in parr to the dorsal retina in smolts. This adaptation may allow fish to use the most reliable polarization field encountered at each life stage, the celestial polarization field in the shallow-swimming parr and the depth-insensitive underwater polarization field in the deep-swimming smolts. In addition, we assessed spectral sensitivity across the retina and during ontogeny and fit a cascade retinal model to PS data. We found that differential contribution of two cone detectors with orthogonal PS could drive the variation in PS and that feedback from horizontal cells to cones could explain the differential amplification of PS. This elegant arrangement, in which weak PS of cones is amplified and tuned by retinal networks, allows for PS without interfering with sampling of other visual information and illustrates how sensory systems may simultaneously process disparate aspects of physical environments.
The Death and Second Life of the Harpsichord
Authors: Johnson Edmond
Published: April 2013

Though far from being the only historical instrument to receive renewed attention during the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, the harpsichord holds a special place in the history of the early music revival. No other instrument played as visible—or, perhaps, as controversial—a role in popularizing musical activities during the revival. As a large and visually distinctive presence, the harpsichord has a tendency to garner attention wherever it appears, whether in a museum case or on the concert hall stage. In this article I explore the harpsichord’s nineteenth-century “death” and its subsequent revival—the two periods of its history that have been most neglected. By reexamining the ways in which the harpsichord was portrayed in both words and images, I show that the instrument’s eventual acceptance in the twentieth century was far from being a fait accompli but depended largely on an extensive and deliberate renegotiation of both its image and its cultural identity.

In the first half of the article I explore the harpsichord’s nineteenth-century existence as an evocative emblem of a vanished past: an instrument turned relic that was frequently laden with supernatural literary tropes and ghostly imagery. In the second section I examine the instrument’s revival, focusing on the ways in which the harpsichord was brought before modern audiences, ultimately in a form that was heavily reengineered and reconfigured. Indeed, in its journey from museum piece to modern musical instrument the harpsichord underwent a marked transformation of both form and character. The process involved a gradual rejection of much of the cultural baggage the harpsichord had accrued during its long dormancy in the nineteenth century and resulted in a transformation that ultimately won it a place in the modern musical world.
Klingende Buchstaben
Authors: Segall Christopher
Published: April 2013

Many composers have incorporated monograms into their music, using pitch letters to spell out words and names. Alfred Schnittke's monogram technique pervades his works from the 1970s until the end of his career. He derived cryptograms from the names of performer-dedicatees, influential composers, and recently deceased friends, using a systematic procedure that accounts in some way for every possible letter in a given name. Although previous scholars have identified individual monograms in some works, the broader principles by which Schnittke generated and deployed his monograms had not been articulated until now. Many of Schnittke's monograms thus remained unidentified, and the ways in which they interact with twelve-tone technique had not been fully understood.

Schnittke appropriated the well-known B–A–C–H and D–S–C–H monograms frequently, but other monograms appear in more than a dozen works. He derived monograms for Russian names from their German transliterations. Schnittke adhered to a principle of chromatic complementation, often integrating monograms into statements of the complete aggregate of twelve pitch classes. I interpret Schnittke’s monogram technique as a facet of the composer’s memorializing impulse, by which he sought to establish in his music the deep connections he felt to the past and the important people in his life.
Adiponectin oligomers as potential indicators of adipose tissue improvement in obese subjects
Authors: De Rosa Anna , Monaco Maria Ludovica , Capasso Mario , Forestieri Pietro , Pilone Vincenzo , Nardelli Carmela , Buono Pasqualina , Daniele Aurora
Published: April 2013

Objective

Adiponectin is an adipocytokine that exerts beneficial effects on obesity and related disorders by two receptors (ADIPORs). Adiponectin is produced as a monomer that circulates in serum as different oligomers. The oligomerization state and the tissue expression of adiponectin and ADIPORs are linked to its biological activities. In this study, the levels of total adiponectin and its oligomers were evaluated in relation to obesity and surgical weight loss. The expression of adiponectin and ADIPORs was analyzed in visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissues of obese patients.

Design and methods

In 25 obese patients and 44 age- and sex-matched controls, the serum levels of adiponectin and its oligomers were measured and compared by ELISA, western blotting, and gel filtration. The expression of adiponectin and ADIPORs in both adipose tissues was evaluated by real-time quantitative PCR and western blotting.

Results

The amount of each adiponectin oligomer, including the monomer, increases after weight loss. The reduced circulating levels of adiponectin and its oligomers are not associated with the adipose tissue depot-specific expression of adiponectin and ADIPORs.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that in patients, adiposity is associated with the serum concentrations of adiponectin and its oligomers but not with adipose tissue depot-specific expression of adiponectin and ADIPORs. In particular, the increase in adiponectin monomer levels could probably be related to the improvement of the whole-body energy metabolism then being involved in the improvement of adipose tissue function after weight loss. This work indicates the importance of assessing the whole adiponectin oligomeric profile as further potential indicators of adipose tissue functions in obesity.
Molecular and clinical analysis of a neonatal severe hyperparathyroidism case caused by a stop mutation in the calcium-sensing receptor extracellular domain representing in effect a human ‘knockout’
Authors: Ward D T , Mughal M Z , Ranieri M , Dvorak-Ewell M M , Valenti G , Riccardi D
Published: April 2013

Objective

Loss-of-function calcium-sensing receptor (CAR) mutations cause elevated parathyroid hormone (PTH) secretion and hypercalcaemia. Although full Car deletion is possible in mice, most human CAR mutations result from a single amino acid substitution that maintains partial function. However, here, we report a case of neonatal severe hyperparathyroidism (NSHPT) in which the truncated CaR lacks any transmembrane domain (CaRR392X), in effect a full CAR ‘knockout’.

Case report

The infant (daughter of distant cousins) presented with hypercalcaemia (5.5–6 mmol/l corrected calcium (2.15–2.65)) and elevated PTH concentrations (650–950 pmol/l (12–81)) together with skeletal demineralisation. NSHPT was confirmed by CAR gene sequencing (homozygous c.1174C-to-T mutation) requiring total parathyroidectomy during which only two glands were located and removed, resulting in normalisation of her serum PTH/calcium levels.

Design and methods

The R392X stop codon was inserted into human CAR and the resulting mutant (CaRR392X) expressed transiently in HEK-293 cells.

Results

CaRR392X expressed as a 54 kDa dimeric glycoprotein that was undetectable in conditioned medium or in the patient's urine. The membrane localisation observed for wild-type CaR in parathyroid gland and transfected HEK-293 cells was absent from the proband's parathyroid gland and from CaRR392X-transfected cells. Expression of the mutant was localised to endoplasmic reticulum consistent with its lack of functional activity.

Conclusions

Intriguingly, the patient remained normocalcaemic throughout childhood (2.5 mM corrected calcium, 11 pg/ml PTH (10–71), age 8 years) but exhibited mild asymptomatic hypocalcaemia at age 10 years, now treated with 1-hydroxycholecalciferol and Ca2+ supplementation. Despite representing a virtual CAR knockout, the patient displays no obvious pathologies beyond her calcium homeostatic dysfunction.
Maternal taurine supplementation in rats partially prevents the adverse effects of early-life protein deprivation on β-cell function and insulin sensitivity
Authors: Tang Christine , Marchand Kelly , Lam Loretta , Lux-Lantos Victoria , Thyssen Sandra M , Guo June , Giacca Adria , Arany Edith
Published: April 2013

Dietary protein restriction during pregnancy and lactation in rats impairs β-cell function and mass in neonates and leads to glucose intolerance in adult offspring. Maternal taurine (Tau) supplementation during pregnancy in rats restores β-cell function and mass in neonates, but its long-term effects are unclear. The prevention of postnatal catch-up growth has been suggested to improve glucose tolerance in adult offspring of low-protein (LP)-fed mothers. The objective of this study was to examine the relative contribution of β-cell dysfunction and insulin resistance to impaired glucose tolerance in 130-day-old rat offspring of LP-fed mothers and the effects of maternal Tau supplementation on β-cell function and insulin resistance in these offspring. Pregnant rats were fed i) control, ii) LP, and iii) LP+Tau diets during gestation and lactation. Offspring were given a control diet following weaning. A fourth group consisting of offspring of LP-fed mothers, maintained on a LP diet following weaning, was also studied (LP-all life). Insulin sensitivity in the offspring of LP-fed mothers was reduced in females but not in males. In both genders, LP exposure decreased β-cell function. Tau supplementation improved insulin sensitivity in females and β-cell function in males. The LP-all life diet improved β-cell function in males. We conclude that i) maternal Tau supplementation has persistent effects on improving glucose metabolism (β-cell function and insulin sensitivity) in adult rat offspring of LP-fed mothers and ii) increasing the amount of protein in the diet of offspring adapted to a LP diet after weaning may impair glucose metabolism (β-cell function) in a gender-specific manner.
Nonionic Electrophoretic Sorting of SWCNTs into Metallic and Semiconducting Tubes
Authors: Johns Kiley A. , Koontz Katie J. , Ma Danhao , Carruba Kathryn J. , Adu Kofi W.
Published: April 2013

We present our preliminary results on a novel technique to electrophoretically sort singlewall carbon nanotubes into metallic and semiconducting tubes using a free-solution nonionic surfactant in a homemade electrophoretic vertical cell. The technique is used to sort purified commercial product SWCNTs, (Thomas Swan Elicarb) into metallic and semiconducting tubes. In contrast to onventional electrophoresis techniques, which takes more than 24 hours to obtain efficient separation, our approach takes ∼ 6 hours to achieve efficient separation, which reduces the separation time by four fold. Characterization of the sorted tubes with micro-Raman spectroscopy analysis shows very strong enrichment of both metallic and semiconducting tubes.
Optoelectronic properties of graphene-MoS2 hybrid
Authors: Padmanabhan Medini , Roy Kallol , Goswami Srijit , Sai T. Phanindra , Ramalingam Gopalakrishnan , Kaushal Sanjeev , Raghavan Srinivasan , Ghosh Arindam
Published: April 2013

Ultra-thin flakes of layered materials have recently been attracting widespread research interest due to their exotic properties. In this work, we study the optoelectronic response of a hybrid of two such materials – graphene and MoS2. Our devices consist of mechanically exfoliated graphene flakes transferred on top of similarly exfoliated MoS2. The electrical response of the hybrid is studied in the presence of white light. We show that the four-point resistance of graphene is modulated in the presence of light. This effect is observed to be a strong function of gate voltage. We have also extended our studies to CVD (chemical vapor deposition) - grown graphene transferred onto MoS2 which show qualitatively similar features, thereby attesting to the scalability of the device architecture.
Laser-Induced Transient Structural Changes in Ag(111) Studied by Time Resolved X-ray Diffraction
Authors: Er Ali Oguz , Chen Jie , Rentzepis Peter M.
Published: April 2013

The transient lattice changes on the Ag(111) crystal due to acoustic wave propagation after excitation with femtosecond pulses was studied by means of time resolved X-ray diffraction. The lattice disorder after UV irradiation is detected by changes of the XRD rocking curve shift, broadening, and total diffraction intensity as a function of time. We have observed a blast force formed within two picoseconds after fs UV irradiation. Experimental results show an initial lattice contraction followed by lattice expansion that propagates with sound velocity.
Computational modeling of radiation-induced segregation in concentrated binary alloys
Authors: Dubey Santosh , El-Azab Anter
Published: April 2013

A sharp-interface model to study radiation-induced segregation in binary alloy has been developed. This model is based on a set of reaction-diffusion equations for the point defect and atomic species concentrations, with a stochastic, spatially-resolved, discrete defect generation terms representing the cascade damage. An important feature of this model, which is significantly different from the way radiation-induced segregation has been studied in the past, is that the role of the boundaries as defect sinks has been ensured by defining defect-boundary interactions via a set of reaction boundary conditions. Defining defect-boundary interactions in this way makes it possible to capture the process of segregation as a consequence of boundary motion. The model is tested in 2D for Cu-Au solid solution with the material surface being free to move. The Gear method has been used to solve the reaction-diffusion equations. Enrichment of Cu and depletion of Au have been observed near to the boundaries.
Non-equilibrium Growth Processes of Porous TiO2 Nanocrystal-films during Pulsed Laser Ablation
Authors: Umezu Ikurou , Yagi Nobuyasu , Sugimura Akira , Yoshida Takehito
Published: April 2013

We performed pulsed laser ablation of titanium dioxide (TiO2) target in O2 background gas. Effects of background gas pressure and substrate target distance on the structure of deposited films are clarified. The hierarchical structures are observed when we change scale of observation. The film deposited on the substrate is composed of primary nanocrystal and secondary porous-aggregated-nanostructures. The primary nanocrystal changes from anatase to rutile phase with increasing background gas pressure or substrate target distance. The porosity of secondary aggregated structure increases with increasing background gas pressure or substrate target distance. The similarity between the effects of background gas and substrate target distance indicates that confinement of the plume between target and substrate is important for structural formation. The non-equilibrium aggregation processes of nanocrystals in the plume and on the substrate are essential for the hierarchical structure of the nanocrystal film.
Modeling the strength and ductility of magnesium alloys containing nanotwins
Authors: Gorti S.B. , Radhakrishnan B.
Published: April 2013

Magnesium alloys have been receiving much attention recently as potential lightweight alternatives to steel for automotive and other applications, but the poor formability of these alloys at low temperatures has limited their widespread adoption for automotive applications. Recent work with face centered cubic (FCC) materials has shown that introduction of twins at the nanometer scale in ultra-fine grained FCC polycrystals can provide significant increase in strength with a simultaneous improvement in ductility. This objective of this work is to explore the feasibility of extending this concept to hexagonal close packed (HCP) materials, with particular focus on using this approach to increase both strength and ductility of magnesium alloys. A crystal plasticity based finite element (CPFE) model is used to study the effect of varying the crystallographic texture and the spacing between the nanoscale twins on the strength and ductility of HCP polycrystals. Deformation of the material is assumed to occur by crystallographic slip, and in addition to the basal and prismatic slip systems, slip is also assumed to occur on the {1 0 $\bar 1$ 1} planes that are associated with compression twins in these materials. The slip system strength of the pyramidal systems containing the nanotwins is assumed to be much lower than the strength of the other systems, which is assumed to scale with the spacing between the nanotwins. The CPFE model is used to compute the stress-strain response for different microstrucrutral parameters, and a criterion based on a critical slip system shear strain and a critical hydrostatic stress is used to compute the limiting strength and ductility, with the ultimate goal of identifying the texture and nanotwin spacing that can lead to the optimum values for these parameters.
The Mechanics and Stability of Gold Nanoparticle-Oligo-Ligand-DNA Systems
Authors: McLaughlin Letisha A. , Zikry Mohammed A.
Published: April 2013

Systems in which DNA is adsorbed onto gold nanoparticles have the potential for applications in gene regulation therapies, drug delivery, sensing, and DNA scaffolding. However, the mechanical stability of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and interfacial behavior between the gold nanoparticles and thiol ligands are not well understood or quantified. The stability of DNA-AuNP) systems is, therefore, examined using a large-scale specialized finite-element approach with a dislocation-density based crystalline plasticity framework to model the AuNPs and an elastic description to model thiol ligands, DNA, and the ionic solution. For compressive loading conditions, the system exhibited morphological instabilities in the nanoparticles, as well as high stress and dislocation-density gradients at the thiol-nanoparticle attachment sites, which can affect system stability and attachment strength.
Pentagate Approach to Reduce the Line Edge Roughness Effects in Bulk Si Tri-gate Transistors
Authors: Akbulut Mustafa B. , Silva Helena , Gokirmak Ali
Published: April 2013

Accumulated body [1] approach to mitigate the effects of line edge roughness on bulk silicon finFETs and tri-gate FETs is analyzed through 3D TCAD simulations. A side-gate surrounding the body portion of the FET is used to accumulate the body with majority carriers. This approach is predicted to reduce device-to-device variability due to line edge roughness by stronger accumulation of the body in the wider sections of the channel and confinement of the channel away from the edges.
Associação familiar de miastenia grave e síndrome miotônica
Authors: Saraiva Sylvio , Assis José Lamartine de
Published: April 2013

É relatada uma associação familiar incomum, incidindo em mãe e filha, a primeira com síndrome miotônica e, a segunda, com miastenia grave, forma ocular. Um terceiro membro da família, irmão da paciente com miotonia, teria também manifestações dessa síndrome. São comentados aspectos clínico-laboratoriais dos casos estudados.
Bioquímica dos meningiomas: conteúdo de cobre, ceruloplasmina, magnésio e enxofre no soro sanguíneo, e conteúdo de cálcio, fósforo, cobre, magnésio, sódio e potássio no tecido tumoral
Authors: Canelas Horácio M. , de Jorge Francisco B. , Tenuto Rolando A. , Pereira Walter C. , Sallum Jamil
Published: April 2013

As concentrações de Cu, ceruloplamina, Mg e S no soro de 8 pacientes com meningioma foram significantemente mais elevadas que os níveis normais. Os teores de Ca, P, Cu, Mg, Na e K no próprio tumor dos mesmos pacientes e de um outro foram comparados com as concentrações na dura máter normal do cérebro humano. Os valores de todos os elementos foram significantemente mais altos no tecido tumoral, exceto o conteúdo médio de Ca em 6 meningiomas meningoteliomatosos ou fibroblásticos, quando este grupo foi estudado à parte. Os tumores psamomatosos mostraram maiores concentrações de Ca, Cu e Mg que os outros tipos histológicos. Não foi verificada correlação significante entre as concentrações dos elementos no tecido neoplásico e a duração dos sintomas ou o volume do tumor, exceto uma correlação negativa entre os níveis de Cu e o volume do tumor.
Distrofia miotônica: análise clínico-genética de uma família
Authors: Silva Jeová Barros da , Barbieri Tarcísio Alberto
Published: April 2013

Mediante o estudo de um caso probando foi possível fazer levantamento genealógico de uma família com 12 membros de ambos os sexos, afetados por distrofia miotônica. São analisados aspectos clínicos e laboratoriais, muitos dos quais confirmam trabalhos publicados anteriormente. Algumas novas contribuições são feitas uma vez que alguns dados são discrepantes dos já anteriormente registrados. A hereditariedade desta anomalia caracteriza-se por transmissão de um fator dominante e autossômico.
Carcinomatose meníngea
Authors: Scaff Milberto , Riva Daniele , Fernandes Wilma S. O.
Published: April 2013

Registro de um caso de carcinomatose meníngea. O diagnóstico foi estabelecido pela evolução e pelo encontro de células neoplásicas no líquido cefalorraqueano. A necropsia mostrou existir carcinoma papilífero do estômago, com metástases nas supra-renais, no espaço retroperitonial, no espaço sub-aracnóideo comprometendo raízes nervosas, nas paredes e na luz de vasos linfáticos, na espessura da dura-mater e no tecido nervoso medular.
Hidrocéfalo com pressão normal, tipo Hakim-Adams
Authors: Mello Paulo Andrade de , Silva Amauri Batista da
Published: April 2013

O hidrocéfalo com pressão normal do LCR, estudado por Hakim e Adams e colaboradores, é caracterizado por demenciação rapidamente progressiva associada a distúrbios da marcha, sinais piramidais e extrapiramidais, e evolução para um estado final semelhante ao do mutismo acinético, com incontinencia esfincteriana, torpor e coma. Os autores apresentam o caso de um paciente de 61 anos de idade no qual se desenvolveu, no período de dois anos, enfermidade inicialmente marcada por distúrbios da marcha, seguidos de deterioração mental de evolução rápida, sinais piramidais nos quatro membros, incontinência esfincteriana, astasia-abasia. Não foram assinalados antecedentes de traumatismos crânio-encefálicos com ou sem hemorragia sub-aracnóidea, de meningite, de ence-falite ou de neoplasia. Os exames radiológicos mostraram grande hidrocéfalo comunicante. O paciente foi submetido a intervenção cirúrgica, sendo feita derivação ventrículo-atrial direita com interposição de válvula de Icon. O pós-operatório foi marcado por melhora rápida dos sintomas mentais e motores. Reexaminado cinco meses após o ato cirúrgico, o paciente continuava em bom estado, tendo voltado às suas atividades profissionais.
Citologia no diagnóstico intra-operatório de neoplasias intracranianas
Authors: Mattosinho-França L. C. , Tenuto Rolando A. , Guidugli Netto J.
Published: April 2013

Os autores apresentam técnica de diagnóstico citológico para neoplasias do sistema nervoso central, aplicável ao diagnóstico rápido intra-operatório. A técnica é baseada em esfregaços não fixados, corados pela tionina. O controle dos resultados foi feito tanto com esfregaços fixados e corados pela técnica de Papanicolaou, como mediante cortes histológicos do mesmo material. Os resultados obtidos são concordes com dados já publicados na literatura por outros autores. Os autores julgam que as técnicas citológicas suplantam com vantagens as técnicas histológicas de congelação, para o diagnóstico neuropatológico intra-operatório.