bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Historiography
Authors: Moyer Ann
Published: May 2010

History was one of the main disciplines identified with the humanist movement; Renaissance humanists wrote many works of history and edited, translated, and published the historical works of ancient predecessors. Most of these works remain available only in their original editions. While some of these writers received financial support for their historical writings during their lives, the profession of historian as it is now understood developed much later. How to evaluate the writing of history in the Renaissance was therefore not a simple matter for 20th-century scholars. From the time of Jacob Burckhardt through much of the 20th century, many scholars identified the Renaissance with particular mental attitudes, including especially a sense of historical anachronism often contrasted with medieval mentalities. Erwin Panofsky expressed this approach most famously (see General Overviews). By the later decades of the 20th century, humanistic uses of language and rhetoric began to receive more serious attention, as did the Renaissance use of ancient models in history writing and elsewhere. Accordingly, more scholars became interested in the forms and genres of history writing during the Renaissance. These approaches required close readings of individual historical works; therefore much late-20th- and early-21st-century scholarship has been less general than before and more focused on individual authors, or on regional traditions bounded by politics and language. By the “linguistic turn” of the late 20th century, modern scholars were also less troubled by the rhetorical and political goals and uses of some Renaissance historical writings than their earlier 20th-century colleagues had been; indeed, these goals might themselves become important topics of investigation. Along with historians of art, who became interested in the uses of visual media in constructing political images of states and rulers, historians have begun to examine the ways Renaissance writers used their pasts to give meaning to their present. Another point of collaboration between history and the history of art has been antiquarian scholarship, which has grown rapidly and become a field in its own right. Research has also turned to questions of the use of sources by Renaissance historical writers. Nineteenth-century historians may have claimed that they were the first to take seriously the use of documentary source materials, but it is now clear that Renaissance historians often did so as well. The wealth of new research will surely continue to reshape our understanding of historical thought and writing during the era of the European Renaissance.
Convent Culture
Authors: Strocchia Sharon
Published: May 2010

The study of women living in organized religious communities in late medieval and early modern Europe has emerged as a field in its own right, owing mainly to the growing interest in women’s history since the 1980s. Many of the questions and theoretical perspectives driving studies of convent life were first developed by feminist scholars working in the social sciences and various humanistic disciplines. The bulk of scholarship since the late 20th century has been dominated by Italy, which had the highest percentage of nuns relative to the lay population anywhere in Europe, and by investigations of nuns’ cultural activities.
Girolamo Savonarola
Authors: Fletcher Stella
Published: May 2010

Born in Ferrara, Girolamo Savonarola (b. 1452–d. 1498) entered the Dominican order in Bologna in 1475. After spells in Florence, San Gimignano, and Brescia, he returned to Florence under Medicean patronage in 1490 and was elected prior of the convent of San Marco the following year. From 1493 he became a thorn in the side of Pope Alexander VI by separating San Marco from the Lombard Congregation of the Dominican order. In 1494 Savonarola used his Lenten sermons to predict the descent of the French into Italy, and his Advent sermons to inspire constitutional reforms to fill the political vacuum created by the expulsion of the Medici. Thereafter his preaching instigated social and spiritual reform in Florence and created a party of ardent followers, the Piagnoni (literally “Wailers”), though the famous “bonfires of vanities,” into which citizens moved by the Savonarolan call to repent threw worldly treasures such as cosmetics and playing cards, did not take place until 1497 and 1498. His criticisms of the pope led to his excommunication in May 1497, and a hemorrhaging of support among Florentines resulted in his arrest, imprisonment, admission of heresy under torture, and, finally, to his execution in the Piazza della Signoria on 23 May 1498. His followers preserved his reputation as an ecclesiastical reformer throughout the sixteenth century. The relevant bibliography is extensive, meaning that the works cited represent a fraction of the whole, to which numerous additions are made each year. Reference Works are followed by Primary Sources, of which there are so many as to require division into Works by Savonarola, his Imprisonment and Execution, and the Early Lives that formed an important part of his posthumous cult. Following the examples of those early vite, the friar’s life easily lends itself to the biographical format, but authors have sought to give it various twists by means of the contexts in which they choose to set it. Consequently, a Lives and Times section seems a reasonable alternative to simple “biographies.” More specific categories and more specialized studies can be found under Prophecy, Florentine Politics and Society, 1494–1498, Savonarolans and Anti-Savonarolans after 1498, Art, and Music. Given that essays on any of those themes can appear in Collections of Papers, that category is left to the end.
Lorenzo de' Medici
Authors: Fletcher Stella
Published: May 2010

Following his grandfather Cosimo (b. 1389–d. 1464) and father Piero (b. 1416–d. 1469), Lorenzo (b. 1449–d. 1492) was the third head of the Medici dynasty to use commercial wealth and international banking connections to lead Florence’s dominant political faction, undermine its republican constitution, and exercise strategic influence over its relations with other states. As his copious correspondence confirms, Lorenzo was a significant diplomatic player in all the peninsular conflicts of his time, including the Pazzi War in the late 1470s, and the War of Ferrara and the Neapolitan Barons’ War in the 1480s. To the generation of Italians who lived through the French invasions of Naples in 1494 and Milan in 1499, and the lengthy conflicts they initiated, Lorenzo came to personify a lost golden age of peace, prosperity, and cultural efflorescence. His posthumous reputation was enhanced by the fact that his son Giovanni and nephew Giulio went on to be elected pope, as Leo X and Clement VII, respectively, and that his great-grandson Cosimo was the first of a line of Medici grand dukes of Tuscany. Over the intervening centuries, secular hagiography has gradually given way to a more balanced assessment of his achievements as a faction leader, statesman, and cultural patron. Consequently, after citing a number of Reference Works, the present article explores the evolution of Lorenzo’s Reputation. It does not separate primary and secondary sources. Rather, it emphasizes the major initiative to publish his Correspondence, which has, in turn, influenced all other recent work in the field. Dynastic Interests were played out on a broad European canvas, though the nature of Italian archives means that there has been an obvious concentration on Lorenzo and the Florentine Elites. Logically, that leads outward into the Florentine Territorial State. The Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478 had both Florentine and Roman dimensions, making it a useful connection to Relations with Other States. Away from politics and diplomacy, his poetry has always ensured that Lorenzo’s name has been integral to the study of Literary Culture in Renaissance Italy. Festivals combined literary and nonliterary elements, so are placed ahead of the Visual Culture, which spans the building of villas in the Florentine contado, references to a sculpture garden in the city and the cultural dimension of interstate diplomacy. Studies of all these subjects and more exist in the Collections of Papers that proliferated in and around the fifth centenary of Lorenzo’s death.
General Church Councils, Pre-Trent
Authors: Minnich Nelson H.
Published: May 2010

During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Catholic Church celebrated more general councils than during any similar period in its history. The Council of Pisa I, 1409 attempted to end the Great Western Schism but instead succeeded in adding a third pope. To bolster his position, the Pisan pope called a council that met in Rome, 1412–1413. The Council of Konstanz, 1414–1418 healed the schism but introduced new issues by declaring the superiority of a council over all Christians and requiring the celebration of councils on a regular basis. In accord with that requirement, a council was held at Pavia-Siena, 1423–1424, with another later at Basel-Lausanne, 1431–1449. The pope tried to transfer the latter council to Ferrara (1437), but the majority of the fathers remained at Basel. The Council of Ferrara (1438–1439) moved to Florence (1439), where it issued decrees uniting the Eastern and Latin churches and condemning the council still being held at Basel. The papal council ended in Rome (1445). In their conflict with Julius II, some cardinals and rulers called a council that met at Pisa (1511) but then transferred to Milan, Asti, and Lyons (1511–1512). To combat that council, Julius II called his own council to meet in the Lateran Basilica in Rome (Lateran V, 1512–1517). These eight councils dealt with themes of church unity (healing schisms), ultimate authority (pope or council), doctrinal issues (the teachings of Wyclif, Hus, Falkenberg, Grabon, and Favaroni; Filioque, Eucharist, Purgatory; immortality of the soul, montes pietatis; etc.), Crusades (attempts to fend off the Turks), and reform (of morals, pastoral care, preaching, education of clergy, the privileges of religious orders, etc.). Scholars have debated the legitimacy of various councils and the origins, meaning, reception, and implementation of their decrees.
Warfare and Military Organizations
Authors: Rogers Clifford J.
Published: May 2010

Throughout the period c. 1350–1650, warfare was endemic in European society, and most rulers and members of the political elite were deeply involved with the maintenance and use of armies and navies. Wars and the development of the “military art” (tactics, strategy, and other aspects of the conduct of war) are interesting subjects for historical inquiry in their own right. But since the mid–20th century students of warfare and military organizations, reflecting broader trends in the discipline of history, have tended to focus less on the details of fighting than on the social history of those who served in the armed forces (a large and relatively well-documented population). Archival studies, drawing on voluminous administrative records, have provided masses of information about topics such as recruitment, supply, soldiers’ living conditions and social backgrounds, and structures of command and control. Since 1956 much of this work has been tied in one way or another to a grand debate about a “Military Revolution” in the Reformation period. Some see this Military Revolution as resulting from technical-tactical change (particularly the rising importance of gunpowder weapons, both handguns and artillery, and then the new style of fortifications developed to resist cannon) and leading to major political and social changes, particularly linked to the rise of the modern state structure. This is true both of broad surveys and of the extensive literature on the development of the various national armed forces of Europe within the period.
Leo X
Authors: Minnich Nelson H.
Published: May 2010

The reign of Pope Leo X (Giovanni Damaso Romolo de’ Medici, b. 1475–d. 1521, pope 1512–1521) was conspicuously important for two main reasons. First, under his patronage, Rome became the center of the High Renaissance, attracting some of the most famous artists and writers of the period. Second, it was during his reign that the Protestant Reformation began, which was to split Western Christendom for the next five centuries.
Plague and its Consequences
Authors: Cohn Samuel Kline , O'Brien Monica
Published: May 2010

Although the character of the disease has stirred much controversy and continues to be the subject of scientific and historical investigations, the consequences of the Black Death and plagues—demographic, economic, social, and cultural—have embroiled historians in debate for a century or more. Some historians have seen the Black Death as a sharp turning point, accounting for many subsequent events and trends in Western civilization, even those that occurred many years afterward, such as the Reformation. Others have downplayed the Black Death’s effects, seeing them at best as only accelerating trends already well in motion, originating with developments such as urbanization that reach back to the 13th century. Nonetheless, the question of the Black Death’s impact on history has concerned historians across a broad range of disciplines—demography, economics, religious studies, and psychology—employing different methods and sources. These are some of the subjects covered in this article alongside others, including the Black Death’s impact on popular revolt, women, literature, and art. The epidemiological character of the Black Death and its medical history are covered in the Oxford Bibliographies in Renaissance and Reformation article “Black Death and Plague: The Disease and Medical Thought.”
Spanish Colonization to 1650
Authors: Poska Allyson M.
Published: May 2010

With Christopher Columbus’s accidental arrival in the Caribbean in 1492, Castile became the first European kingdom to colonize the Americas. The devastation of the indigenous population by epidemic disease allowed Spaniards to quickly lay claim to the islands of the Caribbean, followed by the former Aztec and Inca empires on the mainland. Within 100 years, all of the major Spanish settlements in the Americas had been established. Although older scholarship often focused on the completeness of the Spanish conquest and domination over native peoples, over the past few decades most scholars have offered a more nuanced view that describes the relationship between the Spanish and the indigenous peoples of the Americas as one of negotiation and contestation. In terms of the formation of Spanish colonial society, recent scholarship privileges the complexities of race, class, and gender relations over the establishment and evolution of institutions.
Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
Authors: DuPlessis Robert
Published: May 2010

Whether there was such a thing as an “Atlantic economy” in the Early Modern period (the three centuries from about 1500 to about 1800) remains a matter of debate—part of the larger controversy over whether Atlantic history should be considered a distinct field, a subfield of world history, or just a new title for the long-established, if only recently fashionable again, field of imperial history. What is clear is that there currently exists no study of the Atlantic economy as a whole. Instead, research on early modern Atlantic economic history is scattered in many places and under many rubrics. Often it is included in chapters in books or collective volumes of essays on themes as varied as the early modern Jewish Diaspora or the British Atlantic. Findings in Atlantic economic history also appear as subtopics in subjects such as plantation slavery, piracy, and port cities. Much valuable economic history of the Atlantic basin, moreover, is not explicitly conceptualized or presented from an Atlantic perspective but within frameworks that may be global, imperial, regional, or even local. Then too, diverse historiographical traditions understand the term “Atlantic” differently. For some, it includes the entire basin; for others, just a national littoral that fronts on the Atlantic. Increasingly, scholars understand the Atlantic both as tightly interconnected with other trading areas (close by, like the Mediterranean, and more distant, like the Indian Ocean) and as a dynamic space: usually expanding as areas were colonized and trade routes developed but, on occasion, contracting as wars severed relations or as economies reoriented. Finally, multiauthor collections are common—more common, perhaps, than single-author monographs. This allows better coverage of a wide variety of sources, languages, and societies. But it also reflects and helps perpetuate the absence of a governing paradigm to orient scholarship.
Evangelicalism and Conversion
Authors: Pestana Carla Gardina
Published: May 2010

Conversion was a frequently cited reason for European expansion into the wider Atlantic world. All colonizing powers justified their presence in the New World with reference to their mission to bring Christianity to the inhabitants, and indeed a papal bull divided responsibility for those conversion efforts outside Europe between the Portuguese and the Spanish in the late fifteenth century. Later, as other European states became involved, they used the same justification. The Protestants among them also cited the need to counteract the Roman Catholic efforts—especially those of the Spanish— to rescue the natives from what they deemed false religion. Conversion was, at least in theory, central to the creation of an integrated early modern Atlantic world. On the ground, actual efforts put into the conversion project varied widely, with Roman Catholics relying on religious orders to invest energy in the effort and Protestants doing far less in that direction for the first century or so after they entered the Atlantic world. When conversions did occur, Christian missionaries expected native peoples who converted to change drastically and completely, and they tended to judge anything less than a radical alteration as a false conversion. Much recent scholarship, however, has revealed that Native Americans negotiated between their traditional faith and the new one offered to them by Europeans, making sense of the new by relating it to the old. Conversions to Christianity among America’s first inhabitants were a focal point of European efforts, but they were not the only cases that occurred. Europeans also attempted to convert their African slaves—again more readily among Catholics than Protestants—and one another. By the eighteenth century, newly founded Protestant missionary organizations often concentrated on the conversion of other Europeans within the wider Atlantic world. Partly as a result of their efforts (but also due to other causes) religious revivals swept the Protestant community during the 1730s and 1740s. “Evangelicalism” refers to those Protestants who emphasize conversion and often expand their numbers through revivals. The term “evangelical” was favored by Protestants on the continent of Europe from the beginning to link their religious movement to the early Christian church. The term was taken up by British Protestants in the eighteenth century, on both sides of the Atlantic, to refer to their efforts to revive their churches, returning them to their scriptural roots. Evangelical Christians focus on the Bible and on the importance of the conversion process, and they helped to reshape the Protestant Atlantic through their missionary work and their revivals in the eighteenth century.
Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
Authors: Morgan Kenneth
Published: May 2010

The relationship between overseas trade and British economic growth in the 17th and 18th centuries has long attracted historical attention. The two opposite spectra on this topic are either that foreign trade and overseas demand for British manufactured exports significantly boosted British economic growth, or that domestic demand, stimulated by population growth and agricultural productivity, was more important for the British economy. There is no definitive resolution to these different lines of interpretation; scholarly articles still appear regularly, supporting one end of the spectrum or the other. Between these two poles are many variations, though extreme positions are not usually expressed. In recent years, some historians have sought to bridge the gap between positing either home demand or foreign demand as triggers for British economic growth by exploring the ways in which aggregate demand was raised through a combination of internal and external economic stimuli. Transatlantic commerce is an important part of this debate because the 18th century witnessed the “Americanization” of British overseas trade; in others words, in geographical direction and in the proportion of exports taken from Britain and the imports supplied in return, the thirteen British North American colonies (later states) and the West Indies played a dominant role in British foreign trade. The primary sources and studies on this subject listed in this entry explore these issues in depth.
Religion
Authors: Pestana Carla Gardina
Published: May 2010

Religion shaped the early modern Atlantic world in many ways. Although Iberian expansion began before the Protestant Reformation, Europe soon divided between Protestant and Catholic, and this division created a context for European understandings of the purpose of expansion. With permission from the pope to evangelize outside the Old World, the Spanish and the Portuguese split the extra-European world between them; Spain was responsible for most of the Americas (excluding only the area that would become Brazil), while Portugal took Brazil and Africa (as well as Asia). Soon representatives of each kingdom were at work, conquering, colonizing, and evangelizing. Protestantism, although it arrived late in the contest for colonies and trade in this New World, was central to Spanish understanding of its work; evangelizing the native peoples of the Americas would add additional souls to the church, making up for those who had been lost to the Protestant Reformation. When Protestants finally became involved in colonizing the Americas and trading with Africa, they similarly understood their role as combating the reach and influence of their Catholic rivals. If in 1600 the European presence outside of Europe was overwhelmingly Catholic, by 1700 a map of the spread of Christianity showed varied results. Spain controlled the central area of the Americas, including much of South America and the Caribbean, all of Central America, and all the southern area of North America (from Florida and New Mexico south). Portugal had Brazil, while Catholic France held Quebec to the north and selected islands in the Caribbean. The Protestant presence was predominantly British, and included eastern North America between Quebec and Florida as well as some islands in the Caribbean. The Protestant Dutch also held island colonies and a South American outpost. West Africa and West Central Africa hosted trading forts controlled by most of these European powers, from which were shipped slaves as well as trade goods. The religious rivalries of early modern Europe had been effectively exported. Every faith represented along the shores of the Atlantic prior to contact would participate in the intermixing that occurred afterward. The history of religion in the Atlantic world therefore explores the variety of traditions within that world and the effects of the circulation, transplantation, and encounter of these various faiths.
Iberian Empires, 1600-1800
Authors: Landers Jane
Published: May 2010

By 1600 Spain had completed the conquests of the core areas of its vast empire and established an elaborate network of administrative, legal, religious, and commercial institutions. Viceregal capitals in Mexico City and Lima and hundreds of smaller municipalities attempted to recreate Spain in the New World. Persons born in the Iberian Peninsula were accorded the highest social status, but wealthy Creoles formed a local elite. From first contact, Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans created new mixed-race peoples in the Americas known as castas. American societies were further transformed in the 17th century by the decimation of native peoples and the resulting expansion of the African slave trade to the Spanish colonies. Elaborate naming and legal systems failed to enforce racial separation because factors such as education, wealth, and patronage networks could modify racial categories. Some form of Catholicism connected all the varied groups, although indigenous and African religions proved resilient. Portugal, meanwhile, established a royal colony in Brazil, headquartered in Salvador da Bahia, while also maintaining smaller trading posts (feitorias) scattered along the coasts of Africa and Asia. On the death of King Sebastian during a North African Crusade in 1578, Spain assumed control of the vacant Portuguese throne and held it from 1580 to 1640. The Atlantic consequences of this union were many. Dutch forces attacked and seized formerly Portuguese areas of Brazil and Africa. Dutch, French, and English corsairs also attacked Spanish silver fleets and cities around the Caribbean. In 1640, Portugal launched a war of independence against Spain, and in 1655 the British seized Jamaica. Over the course of the disastrous 17th century, a terrible cycle of droughts, famines, and epidemic diseases decimated remaining indigenous populations in the Americas, silver revenues dropped, and Spain entered a period of severe economic depression. Brazil also suffered economic decline after local forces finally ejected the Dutch from northern Brazil in 1654 and the Dutch transferred their sugar technology, investments, and slaves to the Caribbean. The Brazilian economy only revived at the end of the 17th century, when frontier slave raiders (bandeirantes) in search of indigenous captives discovered gold and diamonds in what is now the state of Minas Gerais. In 1700, Charles II died without an heir, and the War of the Spanish Succession ended with a French Bourbon ruling Spain. The Bourbon kings launched a major economic, administrative, and defensive overhaul of the weakened Spanish Empire, designed to enhance royal control and revenue flows. From 1750 to 1777 Portugal’s Minister of the Kingdom, the Marquis of Pombal, launched enlightened reforms similar to those of Spain, designed to centralize, modernize, and rationalize the administration of Brazil.
The Origins of Slavery
Authors: Guasco Michael
Published: May 2010

Slavery predated European forays into the Atlantic world, but the system that developed during the 16th and 17th centuries was a more exploitative, inhumane, and racially tinged institution than anything that had previously existed in Europe, Africa, or the Americas. The European conquest of the Americas and establishment of colonies was profit oriented. Indigenous peoples were initially preyed upon for their labor in the Caribbean and throughout the Americas, especially in the silver mines of Mexico and the Andes. Bound European laborers were also employed by the thousands, particularly by the French and the British in their West Indian and mainland colonies, where they were used primarily as plantation laborers. Historians agree that a combination of factors (most notably the deaths of Indians from epidemic diseases and the expansion of labor-intensive plantation agricultural enterprises, especially sugar cultivation) led to the decline of these earlier forms of bound labor and the emergence of a new predatory system of slavery that relied on bound African laborers. The unwillingness or inability to treat white Europeans in a slavish fashion also encouraged Europeans to look elsewhere for a labor force that could be totally dominated and compelled to serve the needs of the labor-starved American planters. Though it began in the 16th century as a relatively small-scale enterprise, the transatlantic slave trade erupted in the 17th and 18th centuries to satisfy the demand for human beings to cut cane and tend the sugar mills in Brazil and the West Indies, to work the tobacco fields and rice paddies of North America, and generally to perform the often backbreaking and dehumanizing tasks that Europeans were unwilling to do themselves. The specific labor regimes and legal systems that developed in different parts of the Americas varied greatly, but everywhere Europeans came to agree that African peoples were uniquely valuable commodities whose labor, as slaves, was integral to the wealth and power of both Europe and the emerging states in the Americas.
Primary Intestinal Lymphangiectasia in Children: Is Octreotide an Effective and Safe Option in the Treatment?
Authors: Sari Sinan , Baris Zeren , Dalgic Buket
Published: May 2010

Objective:

Octreotide has been suggested as a medical treatment option in refractory cases of primary intestinal lymphangiectasia (IL). There are few data about the long‐term effect and safety of octreotide for IL in the literature. In the present article we analyzed pediatric cases of primary IL with long‐term octreotide treatment and discussed its safety profile.

Methods:

Between 1999 and 2008, 13 children were diagnosed in our clinic as having IL. Six patients with primary IL were followed up, receiving octreotide therapy. The clinical data of the patients and duration of therapy, dose, and side effects of octreotide were evaluated.

Results:

Octreotide, 15 to 20 μg per body weight 2 times daily subcutaneously, was given to all of the patients. Duration of the octreotide treatment changed between 3 and 37 months. Stool frequency decreased in all of the patients after starting octreotide treatment. Serum albumin could be maintained at normal levels in 3 patients. The requirement of albumin infusions decreased in all of the patients. Acute pancreatitis was observed as a side effect of octreotide in 1 patient.

Conclusions:

Octreotide may help to maintain serum albumin levels, improve clinical findings, and decrease the requirement of albumin infusions in refractory cases of primary IL.
An invitation to die: initiators of sociality in a social amoeba become selfish spores
Authors: Kuzdzal-Fick Jennie J. , Queller David C. , Strassmann Joan E.
Published: May 2010

Greater size and strength are common attributes of contest winners. Even in social insects with high cooperation, the right to reproduce falls to the well-fed queens rather than to poorly fed workers. InDictyostelium discoideum, formerly solitary amoebae aggregate when faced with starvation, and some cells die to form a stalk which others ride up to reach a better location to sporulate. The first cells to starve have lower energy reserves than those that starve later, and previous studies have shown that the better-fed cells in a mix tend to form disproportionately more reproductive spores. Therefore, one might expect that the first cells to starve and initiate the social stage should act altruistically and form disproportionately more of the sterile stalk, thereby enticing other better-fed cells into joining the aggregate. This would resemble caste determination in social insects, where altruistic workers are typically fed less than reproductive queens. However, we show that the opposite result holds: the first cells to starve become reproductive spores, presumably by gearing up for competition and outcompeting late starvers to become prespore first. These findings pose the interesting question of why others would join selfish organizers.
Nanoparticles made of multi-block copolymer of lactic acid and ethylene glycol containing periodic side-chain carboxyl groups for oral delivery of cyclosporine A
Authors: Ankola D. D. , Battisti A. , Solaro R. , Kumar M. N. V. Ravi
Published: May 2010

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential of new carboxylated multi-block copolymer of lactic acid and ethylene glycol (EL14) for nanoparticle (NP) formation and their ability to deliver high molecular weight hydrophobic drug—cyclosporine A (CsA). CsA-loaded EL14 NPs were compared with traditional poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) NPs, both prepared by emulsion–diffusion–evaporation process. On the one hand, the increase in drug payload from 10 to 30 per cent for EL14 NPs showed no difference in particle size, however the entrapment efficiency tends to decrease from 50 to 43 per cent; on the other hand, the more hydrophobic PLGA showed an increasing trend in entrapment efficiency from 20 to 62 per cent with increasing particle size. Over 90 per cent of CsA was releasedin vitrofrom both the nanoparticulates; however, the release was much slower in the case of more hydrophobic PLGA. Onin vivoevaluation in rats, the NPs made of EL14 showed a higherCmax, a fasterTmaxand enhanced tissue levels to that of PLGA that are crucial for CsA's activity and toxicity; however, the overall bioavailability of the nanoparticulates was similar and higher than Neoral. Together these data demonstrate the feasibility of NPs made of low molecular weight, hydrophilic polymer EL14 for efficient delivery of CsA.
Concentration dependence of lipopolymer self-diffusion in supported bilayer membranes
Authors: Zhang Huai-Ying , Hill Reghan J.
Published: May 2010

Self-diffusion coefficients of poly(ethylene glycol)2k-derivatized lipids (DSPE-PEG2k-CF) in glass-supported DOPC phospholipid bilayers are ascertained from quantitative fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP). We developed a first-order reaction–diffusion model to ascertain the bleaching constant, mobile fraction and lipopolymer self-diffusion coefficientDsat concentrations in the rangec≈ 0.5–5 mol%. In contrast to control experiments with 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine-N-(7-nitro-2-1,3-benzoxadiazol-4-yl) (ammonium salt) (DOPE-NBD) in 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC), the lipopolymer self-diffusion coefficient decreases monotonically with increasing concentration, without a distinguishing mushroom-to-brush transition. Our data yield a correlationDs=D0/(1 +αc), whereD0≈ 3.36 µm2s−1andα≈ 0.56 (withcexpressed as a mole percent). Interpreting the dilute limit with the Scalettar–Abney–Owicki statistical mechanical theory for transmembrane proteins yields an effective disc radiusae≈ 2.41 nm. On the other hand, the Bussell–Koch–Hammer theory, which includes hydrodynamic interactions, yieldsae≈ 2.92 nm. As expected, both measures are smaller than the Flory radius of the 2 kDa poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) chains,RF≈ 3.83 nm, and significantly larger than the nominal radius of the phospholipid heads,al≈ 0.46 nm. The diffusion coefficient at infinite dilutionD0was interpreted using the Evans–Sackmann theory, furnishing an inter-leaflet frictional drag coefficientbs≈ 1.33 × 108N s m−3. Our results suggest that lipopolymer interactions are dominated by the excluded volume of the PEG-chain segments, with frictional drag dominated by the two-dimensional bilayer hydrodynamics.
Tipping points in Cattaneo–Christov thermohaline convection
Authors: Straughan B.
Published: May 2010

A model is proposed for thermohaline convection when the heat flux satisfies a relaxation time law rather than the classical Fourier one. Here, we adopt the recent law due to Christov. That a Cattaneo-like law would be relevant in thermohaline convection in star evolution was proposed in 1995 by Herrera and Falcón. They do not develop a detailed model which we do here. We find that with the Cattaneo–Christov law, there is a transition curve (depending on the salt concentration) such that for Cattaneo numbers greater than this transition, the nature of convection changes dramatically.
Boundary layers of an anchored magnetic field in a highly conductive flow
Authors: Núñez Manuel , Lastra Alberto
Published: May 2010

The effects of the flow of an electrically conducting fluid upon a magnetic field anchored at the boundary of a domain are studied. By taking the resistivity as a small parameter, the first-order approximation of an asymptotic analysis yields a boundary layer for the magnetic potential. This layer is analysed both in general and in three particular cases, showing that while in general its effects decrease exponentially with the distance to the boundary, several additional effects are highly relevant.
Stress physiology as a predictor of survival in Galapagos marine iguanas
Authors: Romero L. Michael , Wikelski Martin
Published: May 2010

Although glucocorticoid hormones are considered important physiological regulators for surviving adverse environmental stimuli (stressors), evidence for such a role is sparse and usually extrapolated from glucocorticoid effects under laboratory, short-term and/or non-emergency conditions. Galápagos marine iguanas (
Amblyrhynchus cristatus
) provide an excellent model for determining the ultimate function of a glucocorticoid response because susceptibility to starvation induced by El Niño conditions is essentially their only major natural stressor. In a prospective study, we captured 98 adult male marine iguanas and assessed four major components of their glucocorticoid response: baseline corticosterone titres; corticosterone responses to acute stressors (capture and handling); the maximal capacity to secrete corticosterone (via adrenocorticotropin injection); and the ability to terminate corticosterone responses (negative feedback). Several months after collecting initial measurements, weak El Niño conditions affected the Galápagos and 23 iguanas died. The dead iguanas were typified by a reduced efficacy of negative feedback (i.e. poorer post-stress suppression of corticosterone release) compared with surviving iguanas. We found no prior differences between dead and alive iguanas in baseline corticosterone concentrations, responses to acute stressors, nor in capacity to respond. These data suggest that a greater ability to terminate a stress response conferred a survival advantage during starvation.
Evolution towards oscillation or stability in a predator–prey system
Authors: Mougi Akihiko , Iwasa Yoh
Published: May 2010

We studied a prey–predator system in which both species evolve. We discuss here the conditions that result in coevolution towards a stable equilibrium or towards oscillations. First, we show that a stable equilibrium or population oscillations with small amplitude is likely to occur if the prey's (host's) defence is effective when compared with the predator's (parasite's) attacking ability at equilibrium, whereas large-amplitude oscillations are likely if the predator's (parasite's) attacking ability exceeds the prey's (host's) defensive ability. Second, a stable equilibrium is more likely if the prey's defensive trait evolves faster than the predator's attack trait, whereas population oscillations are likely if the predator's trait evolves faster than that of the prey. Third, when the adaptation rates of both species are similar, the amplitude of the fluctuations in their abundances is small when the adaptation rate is either very slow or very fast, but at an intermediate rate of adaptation the fluctuations have a large amplitude. We also show the case in which the prey's abundance and trait fluctuate greatly, while those of the predator remain almost unchanged. Our results predict that populations and traits in host–parasite systems are more likely than those in prey–predator systems to show large-amplitude oscillations.
Interactions between rate processes with different timescales explain counterintuitive foraging patterns of arctic wintering eiders
Authors: Heath Joel P. , Gilchrist H. Grant , Ydenberg Ronald C.
Published: May 2010

To maximize fitness, animals must respond to a variety of processes that operate at different rates or timescales. Appropriate decisions could therefore involve complex interactions among these processes. For example, eiders wintering in the arctic sea ice must consider locomotion and physiology of diving for benthic invertebrates, digestive processing rate and a nonlinear decrease in profitability of diving as currents increase over the tidal cycle. Using a multi-scale dynamic modelling approach and continuous field observations of individuals, we demonstrate that the strategy that maximizes long-term energy gain involves resting during the most profitable foraging period (slack currents). These counterintuitive foraging patterns are an adaptive trade-off between multiple overlapping rate processes and cannot be explained by classical rate-maximizing optimization theory, which only considers a single timescale and predicts a constant rate of foraging. By reducing foraging and instead digesting during slack currents, eiders structure their activity in order to maximize long-term energetic gain over an entire tide cycle. This study reveals how counterintuitive patterns and a complex functional response can result from a simple trade-off among several overlapping rate processes, emphasizing the necessity of a multi-scale approach for understanding adaptive routines in the wild and evaluating mechanisms in ecological time series.
Trace and contextual fear conditioning require neural activity and NMDA receptor-dependent transmission in the medial prefrontal cortex
Authors: Gilmartin Marieke R. , Helmstetter Fred J.
Published: May 2010

The contribution of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) to the formation of memory is a subject of considerable recent interest. Notably, the mechanisms supporting memory acquisition in this structure are poorly understood. The mPFC has been implicated in the acquisition of trace fear conditioning, a task that requires the association of a conditional stimulus (CS) and an aversive unconditional stimulus (UCS) across a temporal gap. In both rat and human subjects, frontal regions show increased activity during the trace interval separating the CS and UCS. We investigated the contribution of prefrontal neural activity in the rat to the acquisition of trace fear conditioning using microinfusions of the γ-aminobutyric acid type A (GABAA) receptor agonist muscimol. We also investigated the role of prefrontal N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor-mediated signaling in trace fear conditioning using the NMDA receptor antagonist 2-amino-5-phosphonovaleric acid (APV). Temporary inactivation of prefrontal activity with muscimol or blockade of NMDA receptor-dependent transmission in mPFC impaired the acquisition of trace, but not delay, conditional fear responses. Simultaneously acquired contextual fear responses were also impaired in drug-treated rats exposed to trace or delay, but not unpaired, training protocols. Our results support the idea that synaptic plasticity within the mPFC is critical for the long-term storage of memory in trace fear conditioning.
Life‐history traits of the stone loach Barbatula barbatula
Authors: Vinyoles D. , De Sostoa A. , Franch C. , Maceda‐Veiga A. , Casals F. , Caiola N.
Published: May 2010

The life‐history tactics of the stone loach Barbatula barbatula were studied in a Mediterranean‐type climate stream (Matarranya River) located in the Ebro River basin (north‐east Spain). Maximum observed ages were 2+ years in both sexes (1% of individuals), although only 0+ and 1+ year age groups were well represented. It is the lowest longevity reported for this species in its entire distribution. The seasonal growth period started in June and continued until November, but the pattern observed was different to northern populations. Barbatula barbatula in the Matarranya River was a multiple spawner, releasing small batches of oocytes between April and June. The fecundity of females was higher and the size of oocytes smaller in 1984 than in 1985. The relative fecundity (number of ripening and ripe oocytes g−1 of fish) was lower than in northern European populations. The role of the particular environmental conditions of a Mediterranean stream was discussed in relation to the life‐history tactics of B. barbatula.
Synthesis of 17,20β,21‐trihydroxypregn‐4‐en‐3‐one by ovaries of reproductively mature Atlantic cod Gadus morhua
Authors: Tveiten H. , Frantzen M. , Scott A. M. , Scott A. P.
Published: May 2010

Atlantic cod Gadus morhua ovaries were incubated in vitro with tritiated 17‐hydroxypregn‐4‐ene‐3,20‐dione (17‐P) to determine whether 17,20β‐dihydroxypregn‐4‐en‐3‐one (17,20β‐P) or 17,20β, 21‐trihydroxypregn‐4‐en‐3‐one (17,20β,21‐P), or both, were more likely to be the steroid responsible for inducing oocyte final maturation (i.e. resumption of meiosis). Only 17,20β,21‐P was produced, in addition to 11‐deoxycortisol (17,21‐P), which is intermediate between 17‐P and 17,20β,21‐P. Also, the 5β‐reduced forms of 17‐P, 17,21‐P and 17,20β,21‐P were all found. Some sulphation of 21‐hydroxylated steroids was demonstrated. The ability of female G. morhua to make 17,20β,21‐P but not 17,20β‐P was confirmed by radioimmunoassay of plasma samples from spawning fish. Although small amounts of 17,20β‐P immunoreactivity were detected in a few plasma samples, this was shown, by thin‐layer chromatography, to be mostly due to cross‐reaction with other unidentified compounds. The evidence strongly suggests that 17,20β,21‐P is more likely than 17,20β‐P to be the maturation‐inducing steroid in G. morhua.
Seasonal and ontogenetic shifts in the diet of Arctic charr Salvelinus alpinus in a subarctic lake
Authors: Eloranta A. P. , Kahilainen K. K. , Jones R. I.
Published: May 2010

Seasonal and ontogenetic shifts in the diet of Arctic charr Salvelinus alpinus were studied in a deep, ultra‐oligotrophic lake in subarctic Finland from both stomach contents and the stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope compositions of muscle and liver tissues. Both diet and isotope results indicated that the S. alpinus population relied mainly on littoral benthic energy sources. The strong littoral reliance appeared largely independent of season or fish size, although the data lacked small (total length, LT, <130 mm) and young (<3 years) S. alpinus. Liver isotope values of intermediate‐sized S. alpinus (200–350 mm), however, suggested exploitation of the increase in the abundance of pelagic zooplankton in the late open‐water season. The results suggest that, in general, a strong littoral reliance of fishes can be a feature in subarctic lakes throughout the year. Due to its faster isotopic turnover rate and thus higher resolution for temporal diet changes, liver could be more commonly used in stable‐isotope studies of fish trophic niche shifts instead of using only the less responsive muscle tissue.
Validation of scale‐age determination in European grayling Thymallus thymallus using tag‐recapture analysis
Authors: Horká P. , Ibbotson A. , Jones J. I. , Cove R. J. , Scott L. J.
Published: May 2010

To validate age determination from scales in European grayling Thymallus thymallus, the scale‐read age of fish was compared with the true age obtained by tag‐recapture analysis. A total of 3997 individuals were tagged with visible implant tags and passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags in the River Wylye, south‐west England during 1999–2007. Annual repeat surveys were undertaken and collected scales read without prior knowledge of tag‐recapture age. Accuracy of fish ageing by scales was highest in 1 and 2 year‐old fish but decreased in older fish. In later life stages (>4 years old), underestimation of age occurred and the error in reading scales rose to 51·9% in 5 year‐old fish. Age assigned from scales underestimated the tag‐recapture assigned age by as much as 3 years. This study suggests that use of scales is an appropriate method to age a short‐lived population of T. thymallus inhabiting productive lotic systems. The underestimation of age in older fish, however, needs to be considered in the management of fish stocks because it may lead to undesirable exploitation of population.
Feeding rates in the sailfin molly Poecilia latipinna and its coexisting sexual parasite, the gynogenetic Amazon molly Poecilia formosa
Authors: Fischer C. , Schlupp I.
Published: May 2010

Feeding rates of the gynogenetic Amazon molly Poecilia formosa and one of its sexual hosts, the sailfin molly Poecilia latipinna, were measured under winter and summer temperature conditions. Food consumption of the unisexual P. formosa in winter conditions was significantly higher than that of P. latipinna, and it is hypothesized that the resulting food stress might have an important influence on the population composition of these closely related fishes via higher winter mortality in P. formosa.