bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effect of crossbreeding with Limousine, Rubia Gallega and Belgium Blue on meat quality and fatty acid profile of Holstein calves
Authors: Domingo Gonzalo , Iglesias Antonio , Monserrat Lorenzo , Sanchez Luciano , Cantalapiedra Jesus , Lorenzo Jose Manuel 
Published: February 2015

AbstractThe object of this work was to study the effects of crossbreeding on meat quality and fatty acid profile of Holstein calves. Samples were taken from Longissimus thoracis (LT) muscle of 36 calves of three different groups (Holstein crossed with Rubia Gallega (HF×RG), Holstein crossed with Limousine (HF×LI) and Holstein crossed with Belgian Blue (HF×BB)). Significant differences were observed in carcass weight and killing out percentage (P < 0.001) among, groups reaching the highest values in the HF×BB group (228 kg and 59.4%, respectively), while the cross with Limousine presented the lowest values for carcass weight (191 kg) and the cross with Rubia Gallega showed the lowest killing out percentages (54.9%). Meat from HF×RG animals was redder (a* 13.31) and lightest (L* 39.55) than meat from HF×LI and HF×BB groups. With regard to fatty acid profile, the saturated fatty acids were the most abundant fatty acid, followed by monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acids in the three groups. Crossbreeding did not affect the proportion of fatty acid. Finally, live weight, cold carcass weight, killing out, shear force, L* from LT, b*from LT, a* from fat, b* from fat, C14:0, C15:0, C16:0, C18:0, C18:3n‐6, MUFA and price‐to‐sales ratio were the selected variables from discriminant analysis to classify the types of crossbreeding.
Plasma IL‐33 in atopic patients correlates with pro‐inflammatory cytokines and changes cholesterol transport protein expression: a surprising neutral overall impact on atherogenicity
Authors: Voloshyna I. , Mucci T. , Sher J. , Fonacier L. S. , Littlefield M. J. , Carsons S. , Reiss A. B. 
Published: February 2015

SummaryObjectiveInterleukin (IL)‐33 has been associated with atopic and inflammatory conditions. IL‐33 may be atheroprotective inducing a Th1‐to‐Th2 immunologic switch. However, the role of IL‐33 in cardiovascular disease remains unclear. This study examines the effect of physiological and elevated IL‐33 levels in plasma from atopic patients (AP) on cholesterol metabolism in human macrophages as compared to plasma from healthy controls (HC).MethodsTwenty‐five AP and 25 HC were enrolled in this study. Plasma samples were analysed for levels of IL‐33, IFN‐γ, TNF‐α, IL‐17α, IL‐5 and soluble ST2. THP‐1 differentiated macrophages were exposed to HC and AP plasma. Expression of proteins involved in reverse cholesterol transport (ABCA1, ABCG1 and 27‐hydroxylase) and scavenger receptors, responsible for uptake of modified lipids (CD36, ScR‐A1, CXCL16 and LOX‐1), was measured using QRT‐PCR and immunoblotting techniques.ResultsIL‐33 was significantly higher in AP plasma: 106.7 ± 95 pg/mL versus HC plasma (53.4 ± 23 pg/mL). IL‐33 concentration strongly correlated with levels of IFN‐γ (r = 0.85), TNFα (r = 0.9) and IL‐17α (r = 0.94). No significant difference was found in soluble ST2 levels. An important contrast was observed for 27‐hydroxylase: normal IL‐33 in AP plasma amplified 27‐hydroxylase while increased IL‐33 suppressed it. Expression of CD36 and SR‐A1 was greater in macrophages exposed to plasma with high IL‐33, while CXCL16 was higher in cells grown in the presence of plasma with normal IL‐33.ConclusionsHere, we demonstrate that high levels of IL‐33 and a high IL‐33/soluble ST2 ratio correlates with elevated levels of IFN‐γ, TNF‐α and IL‐17α as well as IL‐5, demonstrating that IL‐33 has pleiotropic effects. However, elevated IL‐33 did not significantly impact lipid accumulation in macrophages overall. Given the wide variety of cellular responses regulated by IL‐33, further investigation with a larger sample size will allow us to clarify the threshold concentration of IL‐33 that leads to optimal cholesterol balance.
Efficacy and quality of life after transcutaneous posterior tibial neuromodulation for faecal incontinence
Authors: Jiménez‐Toscano M. , Vega D. , Fernandez‐Cebrián J. M. , Valle Martín B. , Jiménez‐Almonacid P. , Rueda Orgaz J. A. 
Published: February 2015

AbstractAimThe aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of transcutaneous neuromodulation of the posterior tibial nerve for faecal incontinence and to assess quality of life after the procedure.MethodA prospective non‐randomized cohort study was conducted in a tertiary centre from September 2010 to May 2013. All patients with faecal incontinence who met the inclusion criteria were included and were treated as outpatients during a 3‐month period by unilateral neuromodulation of the posterior tibial nerve. The patients were followed 3‐monthly for 1 year. Severity scales, a bowel diary and quality of life scales were evaluated prospectively before and after treatment.ResultsTwenty‐seven patients of median age 67 (interquartile range 60–69) years and a male to female ratio of 1/6 were included. Faecal incontinence was for solid stools in 48.1% of patients with urgency in 55.6%. About one‐third (34.6%) had a sphincter defect on ultrasound and reduction of anal canal pressure in 85.2%. There was a significant improvement in episodes of incontinence on the Wexner score and visual analogue scale assessment and a decrease in the number of episodes of incontinence per unit time. The Fecal Incontinence Quality of Life score was improved at the end of the follow‐up. No adverse effects were observed. The cost of the treatment was €135 per patient.ConclusionTranscutaneous posterior tibial nerve neuromodulation provides good treatment for faecal incontinence in terms of efficacy and quality of life.
Risk factors associated with a reduced response in the treatment of erysipelas
Authors: Linke Miriam , Booken Nina 
Published: February 2015

SummaryBackgroundIn most cases, erysipelas may be adequately treated using first‐line antibiotic therapy. However, clinicians are sometimes confronted with complicated cases, in which patients do not respond to initial antibiotic therapy. The objective of this study was to identify risk factors associated with a reduced response to antibiotic therapy and, thus, a more complicated disease course.Patients and MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed the clinical course of 98 patients with erysipelas treated with standard antibiotic therapy. Patient groups showing different therapeutic responses were compared with respect to clinical data, medical history, and laboratory parameters.ResultsPatients with bullous or hemorrhagic erysipelas (p = 0.0008), stasis dermatitis (p = 0.01) or chronic venous insufficiency (p = 0.0004) showed a significantly reduced response to initial therapy with cefuroxime or clindamycin, respectively. Furthermore, the response to initial therapy significantly depended on C‐reactive protein (p = 0.007) and neutrophil (p = 0.02) levels.ConclusionIn erysipelas patients with clinical complications, abnormal laboratory parameters or preexisting local skin damage, an intensified antibiotic regimen should be considered.
Mapping the development of facial expression recognition
Authors: Rodger Helen , Vizioli Luca , Ouyang Xinyi , Caldara Roberto 
Published: February 2015

AbstractReading the non‐verbal cues from faces to infer the emotional states of others is central to our daily social interactions from very early in life. Despite the relatively well‐documented ontogeny of facial expression recognition in infancy, our understanding of the development of this critical social skill throughout childhood into adulthood remains limited. To this end, using a psychophysical approach we implemented the QUEST threshold‐seeking algorithm to parametrically manipulate the quantity of signals available in faces normalized for contrast and luminance displaying the six emotional expressions, plus neutral. We thus determined observers' perceptual thresholds for effective discrimination of each emotional expression from 5 years of age up to adulthood. Consistent with previous studies, happiness was most easily recognized with minimum signals (35% on average), whereas fear required the maximum signals (97% on average) across groups. Overall, recognition improved with age for all expressions except happiness and fear, for which all age groups including the youngest remained within the adult range. Uniquely, our findings characterize the recognition trajectories of the six basic emotions into three distinct groupings: expressions that show a steep improvement with age – disgust, neutral, and anger; expressions that show a more gradual improvement with age – sadness, surprise; and those that remain stable from early childhood – happiness and fear, indicating that the coding for these expressions is already mature by 5 years of age. Altogether, our data provide for the first time a fine‐grained mapping of the development of facial expression recognition. This approach significantly increases our understanding of the decoding of emotions across development and offers a novel tool to measure impairments for specific facial expressions in developmental clinical populations.
Neighborhood crime as a predictor of individual differences in emotional processing and regulation
Authors: McCoy Dana Charles , Roy Amanda L. , Raver C. Cybele 
Published: February 2015

AbstractEmerging research suggests that early exposure to environmental adversity has important implications for the development of brain regions associated with emotion regulation, yet little is known about how such adversity translates into observable differences in children's emotion‐related behavior. The present study examines the relationship between geocoded neighborhood crime and urban pre‐adolescents' emotional attention, appraisal, and response. Results indicate that living in a high‐crime neighborhood is associated with greater selective attention toward negatively valenced emotional stimuli on a dot probe task, less biased appraisal of fear on a facial identification task, and lower rates of teacher‐reported internalizing behaviors in the classroom. These findings suggest that children facing particularly high levels of environmental threat may develop different regulatory processes (e.g. greater use of emotional suppression) than their peers from low‐crime neighborhoods in order to manage the unique stressors and social demands of their communities.
The attentional ‘zoom‐lens’ in 8‐month‐old infants
Authors: Ronconi Luca , Franchin Laura , Valenza Eloisa , Gori Simone , Facoetti Andrea 
Published: February 2015

AbstractThe spatial attention mechanisms of orienting and zooming cooperate to properly select visual information from the environment and plan eye movements accordingly. Despite the fact that orienting ability has been extensively studied in infancy, the zooming mechanism – namely, the ability to distribute the attentional resources to a small or large portion of the visual field – has never been tested before. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the attentional zooming abilities of 8‐month‐old infants. An eye‐tracker device was employed to measure the saccadic latencies (SLs) at the onset of a visual target displayed at two eccentricities. The size of the more eccentric target was adjusted in order to counteract the effect of cortical magnification. Before the target display, attentional resources were automatically focused (zoom‐in) or spread out (zoom‐out) by using a small or large cue, respectively. Two different cue–target intervals were also employed to measure the time course of this attentional mechanism. The results showed that infants'SLs varied as a function of the cue size. Moreover, a clear time course emerged, demonstrating that infants can rapidly adjust the attentional focus size during a pre‐saccadic temporal window. These findings could serve as an early marker for neurodevelopmental disorders associated with attentional zooming dysfunction such as autism and dyslexia.
Discourse bootstrapping: preschoolers use linguistic discourse to learn new words
Authors: Sullivan Jessica , Barner David 
Published: February 2015

AbstractWhen children acquire language, they often learn words in the absence of direct instruction (e.g. ‘This is a ball!’) or even social cues to reference (e.g. eye gaze, pointing). However, there are few accounts of how children do this, especially in cases where the referent of a new word is ambiguous. Across two experiments, we test whether preschoolers (2‐ to 4‐year‐olds; n = 239) can learn new words by inferring the referent of a new word from the surrounding linguistic discourse. Across two experiments, we show that children as young as 2 can learn a new word from the linguistic discourse in which it appears. This suggests that children use the linguistic discourse in which a word appears to learn new words.
An endophyte‐rich diet increases ant predation on a specialist herbivorous insect
Authors: HAMMER TOBIN J. , VAN BAEL SUNSHINE A. 
Published: February 2015

1. All plants form symbioses with microfungi, known as endophytes, which live within plant tissues. Numerous studies have documented endophyte–herbivore antagonism in grass systems, but plant–endophyte–insect interactions are highly variable for forbs and woody plants.2. The net effect of endophytes on insect herbivory may be modified by their interactions with higher trophic levels, such as predators. Including these multitrophic dynamics may explain some of the variability among endophyte studies of non‐grass plants, which are currently based exclusively on bitrophic studies.3. The abundance of natural foliar endophytes in a Neotropical vine was manipulated and beetles were fed high or low endophyte diets. Experimental assays assessed whether dietary endophyte load affected beetle growth, leaf consumption, and susceptibility to ant predation.4. Beetles feeding on high‐ versus low‐endophyte plants had almost identical growth and leaf consumption rates.5. In a field bioassay, however, it was discovered that feeding on an endophyte‐rich diet increased a beetle's odds of capture by predatory ants nine‐fold.6. Endophytes could thus provide an indirect, enemy‐mediated form of plant defence that operates even against specialist herbivores. We argue that a multitrophic approach is necessary to untangle the potentially diverse types of endophyte defence among plants.
Update on paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria: on the long way to understand the principles of the disease
Authors: Schubert Jörg , Röth Alexander 
Published: February 2015

AbstractThe understanding of the clinical manifestations in paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria (PNH) has made great progress. The main symptoms of this disease such as abdominal pain, renal failure or pulmonary hypertension and even the basis of the dramatic thrombophilia can be related to intravascular haemolysis and liberation of free haemoglobin resulting in NO depletion. In addition, there has been a recent great progress in elucidating the pathophysiology of clonal expansion within PNH bone marrow. In the majority of patients with haemolytic PNH, there are additional mutations within genes beyond PIG‐A and rather affecting growth and differentiation of clonal bone marrow cells. In contrast to the formerly proposed single mechanism hypotheses such as immune selection or intrinsic gain of clonal dominance, this appears to follow a pattern of a complex clonal hierarchy putatively integrating both earlier anticipated mechanisms. Treatment of PNH is mainly supportive. The only curative approach as allogeneic stem cell transplantation should only be applied to patients with complications such as secondary bone marrow aplasia or transformation into MDS or AML. Symptomatic haemolytic PNH will be treated with eculizumab, an inhibitor of the terminal complement cascade. Treatment with eculizumab can significantly prevent PNH‐related symptoms including the abnormal thrombophilia. Recently, it was demonstrated that in contrast to untreated historic PNH patients, meanwhile a normal life expectancy is observed in eculizumab‐treated patients. The recently approved vaccine against meningococci type B by the European Medical Agency (EMA) could probably further help to prevent meningococcal sepsis due to the induced complement deficiency by eculizumab.
Involving patients in health technology funding decisions: stakeholder perspectives on processes used in Australia
Authors: Lopes Edilene , Street Jackie , Carter Drew , Merlin Tracy 
Published: February 2015

AbstractBackgroundGovernments use a variety of processes to incorporate public perspectives into policymaking, but few studies have evaluated these processes from participants' point of view.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was twofold: to understand the perspectives of selected stakeholders with regard to involvement processes used by Australian Advisory Committees to engage the public and patients; and to identify barriers and facilitators to participation.DesignTwelve semi‐structured interviews were conducted with representatives of different stakeholder groups involved in health technology funding decisions in Australia. Data were collected and analysed using a theoretical framework created by Rowe and Frewer, but adapted to more fully acknowledge issues of power and influence.ResultsStakeholder groups disagreed as to what constitutes effective and inclusive patient involvement. Barriers reported by interviewees included poor communication, a lack of transparency, unworkable deadlines, and inadequate representativeness. Also described were problems associated with defining the task for patients and their advocates and with the timing of patient input in the decision‐making process. Interviewees suggested that patient participation could be improved by increasing the number of patient organizations engaged in processes and including those organizations at different stages of decision making, especially earlier.ConclusionsThe different evaluations made by stakeholder groups appear to be underpinned by contrasting conceptions of public involvement and its value, in line with Graham Martin's work which distinguishes between ‘technocratic’ and ‘democratic’ public involvement. Understanding stakeholders' perspectives and the contrasting conceptions of public involvement could foster future agreement on which processes should be used to involve the public in decision making.
Platelet‐rich plasma enhances the differentiation of dental pulp progenitor cells into odontoblasts
Authors: Yeom K. H. , Ariyoshi W. , Okinaga T. , Washio A. , Morotomi T. , Kitamura C. , Nishihara T. 
Published: February 2015

AbstractAimTo investigate the effects of PRP on odontoblastic differentiation using dental pulp progenitor cells derived from the dental papilla of rat incisors.MethodologyMonolayer cultures of odontoblastic lineage KN‐3 cells were incubated with PRP for various time periods. The expression of dentine sialophosphoprotein (DSPP) and dentine matrix protein‐1 (DMP‐1) was determined using real‐time reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction and Western blot analyses. To further clarify the role of PRP in odontogenesis, KN‐3 cells were stimulated with PRP in the presence of ascorbic acid and β‐glycerophosphate. The cells were stained for alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and ALP activity was quantified in cell lysates. The formation of mineralized nodules was assessed by alizarin red staining. Statistical analysis was performed by one‐way analysis of variance.ResultsPRP increased the mRNA and protein expressions of odontoblastic markers, such as DSPP and DMP‐1. Furthermore, PRP stimulated the ALP activity and mineralized nodule formation induced by ascorbic acid and β‐glycerophosphate in a time‐dependent manner.ConclusionsPRP enhances odontoblastic differentiation of KN‐3 cells. These results indicate that PRP could be a potential candidate for use in the regeneration of dentine–pulp complex.
Modelling household conservation behaviour among ethnic consumers: the path from values to behaviours
Authors: Segev Sigal 
Published: February 2015

AbstractThis article tests a model that explains household conservation behaviour among ethnic consumers. Increasing immigration into Western countries has raised serious questions about the extent to which emerging ethnic communities contribute to environmental degradation or sustainability in their host countries. Previous research focused mainly on measuring ethnic consumers' environmental attitudes, worldviews and concerns, assuming that these ultimately lead to pro‐environmental behaviours. However, these studies overlooked the reality in which pro‐environmental attitudes are not automatically being translated into corresponding behaviours. This study explores the relationship between a set of factors that drive pro‐environmental behaviour, proposing a hierarchical model that depicts a flow from values to household conservation behaviours (i.e. recycling, water, electricity and energy conservation) and the intervening cognitive, affective and psychological variables. Results from a sample of 410 American Hispanic students indicate that the cultural value of collectivism influences conservation behaviour through the more specific factors of environmental values, environmental concern, perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE) and concrete environmental knowledge. Interestingly, the influence of PCE was more apparent in routine, easy‐to‐perform behaviours such as water conservation and the behavioural aspect of electricity conservation. The influence of concrete environmental knowledge was more powerful in predicting recycling, the use of electricity‐efficient home appliances and energy conservation. Implications for the promotion of conservation behaviour and consumer education as well as directions for future research are discussed.
International Differences in Fiscal Outcomes during the Global Crisis
Authors: Bénétrix Agustín S. , Lane Philip R. 
Published: February 2015

AbstractWe examine the cross‐country dispersion in fiscal outcomes during 2008–09. Controlling for output, we find that the declines in the overall and structural fiscal balances were larger for those countries experiencing larger increases in unemployment and where credit growth during the pre‐crisis period was more rapid. However, controlling for output and unemployment, there is no systematic covariation between fiscal outcomes and a wider range of initial conditions and country characteristics that have been cited as possible drivers of fiscal outcomes during this episode.