bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Child‐Care Subsidies and School Readiness in Kindergarten
Authors: Johnson Anna D. , Martin Anne , Brooks‐Gunn Jeanne 
Published: March 2013

The federal child‐care subsidy program represents one of the government's largest investments in early care and education. Using data from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort, this study examines associations, among subsidy‐eligible families, between child‐care subsidy receipt when children are 4 years old and a range of school readiness outcomes in kindergarten (sample n ≈ 1,400). Findings suggest that subsidy receipt in preschool is not directly linked to subsequent reading or social‐emotional skills. However, subsidy receipt predicted lower math scores among children attending community‐based centers. Supplementary analyses revealed that subsidies predicted greater use of center care, but this association did not appear to affect school readiness.
Reexamining the Minimum Viable Population Concept for Long‐Lived Species
Authors: SHOEMAKER KEVIN T. , BREISCH ALVIN R. , JAYCOX JESSE W. , GIBBS JAMES P. 
Published: March 2013

AbstractFor decades conservation biologists have proposed general rules of thumb for minimum viable population size (MVP); typically, they range from hundreds to thousands of individuals. These rules have shifted conservation resources away from small and fragmented populations. We examined whether iteroparous, long‐lived species might constitute an exception to general MVP guidelines. On the basis of results from a 10‐year capture‐recapture study in eastern New York (U.S.A.), we developed a comprehensive demographic model for the globally threatened bog turtle (Glyptemys muhlenbergii), which is designated as endangered by the IUCN in 2011. We assessed population viability across a wide range of initial abundances and carrying capacities. Not accounting for inbreeding, our results suggest that bog turtle colonies with as few as 15 breeding females have >90% probability of persisting for >100 years, provided vital rates and environmental variance remain at currently estimated levels. On the basis of our results, we suggest that MVP thresholds may be 1–2 orders of magnitude too high for many long‐lived organisms. Consequently, protection of small and fragmented populations may constitute a viable conservation option for such species, especially in a regional or metapopulation context.Reexaminando el Concepto de Población Mínima Viable para Especies Longevas Resumen
Peritoneal fluid cytokines and matrix metalloproteinases as early markers of anastomotic leakage in colorectal anastomosis: a literature review and meta‐analysis
Authors: Cini C. , Wolthuis A. , D'Hoore A. 
Published: March 2013

AbstractAimThere has been recent interest in the measurement of peritoneal fluid cytokines in the early postoperative period to help diagnose anastomotic leakage at a preclinical stage. The currently available literature on the early diagnosis of colorectal anastomotic leakage by estimation of drain fluid cytokines or matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) is reviewed.MethodA literature search was performed in PubMed, EMBASE and the Cochrane library for all publications studying the feasibility of diagnosing colorectal anastomotic leakage earlier by estimation of peritoneal fluid cytokine or MMP levels. A meta‐analysis of the most commonly measured cytokines was performed.ResultsEight publications were included. Tumour necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α) and interleukin‐6 (IL‐6) were most frequently studied. Most studies found significantly higher levels of TNF‐α and IL‐6 in patients with anastomotic leakage during the first three postoperative days. In the meta‐analysis IL‐6 levels were significantly higher from day 1 and TNF‐α from day 2. MMP‐9 was most often significantly elevated in patients with anastomotic leakage.ConclusionMeasurement of drain fluid cytokines and MMP has the potential to diagnose colorectal anastomotic leakage at a preclinical stage, but is not yet ready for clinical use. Further research is needed, possibly using IL‐6 in combination with other cytokines and MMP as markers.
Short‐term outcome after neoadjuvant high‐dose‐rate endorectal brachytherapy or short‐course external beam radiotherapy in resectable rectal cancer
Authors: Hesselager C. , Vuong T. , Påhlman L. , Richard C. , Liberman S. , Letellier F. , Folkesson J. 
Published: March 2013

AbstractAimTotal mesorectal excision with preoperative radiotherapy reduces local recurrence in rectal cancer, but radiotherapy increases the risk of complications. This study compared the immediate postoperative outcome after external beam radiotherapy with outome after high‐dose‐rate endorectal brachytherapy (HDREBT).MethodPatients (n = 318) treated with preoperative HDREBT (6.5 Gy, daily, over 4 days) followed by surgery 4–8 weeks later were matched with 318 patients from the Swedish Rectal Cancer Register treated with short‐course radiotherapy (SCRT; 5 Gy, daily, over 5 days) and surgery in the subsequent week and with 318 patients who had surgery only (i.e. no preoperative radiotherapy; RT‐) All 954 patients were followed for 30 days after surgery. Complications were divided into surgical, cardiovascular and infectious.ResultsThe SCRT group had fewer cardiovascular complications (3.1%) than did HDREBT (9.4%, P = 0.002) and RT‐ (7.2%, P = 0.03) groups. There was less perioperative bleeding in HDREBT patients (379.3 ml) than in SCRT (947.2 ml; P < 0.0001) or RT‐ (918.9 ml) patients, and the re‐intervention rate was lower in HDREBT (4.1%) patients than in SCRT (14.2%; P = 0.005) and RT‐ (12.3%; P < 0.005) patients. The HDREBT group had fewer R2 resections than did the SCRT and RT‐ groups, but had a higher proportion of R0 resections compared with the RT‐ group (P = 0.03).ConclusionNo major differences in postoperative complications were found. HDREBT patients had a higher rate of cardiovascular complications, but less perioperative bleeding and fewer re‐interventions. A longer interval between radiotherapy and surgery may be beneficial for tumour regression and this could be reflected in the number of radical resections.
Strategies for early detection of chronic Q‐fever: a systematic review
Authors: Wielders Cornelia C. H. , Morroy Gabriëlla , Wever Peter C. , Coutinho Roel A. , Schneeberger Peter M. , van der Hoek Wim 
Published: March 2013

AbstractBackgroundChronic Q‐fever, a condition with high morbidity and mortality, may develop after an acute infection with Coxiella burnetii (acute Q‐fever). Several strategies have been suggested for early detection of chronic Q‐fever, focusing on follow‐up of known acute Q‐fever patients and detection of asymptomatic or unknown chronic infections. As there is no international standard or consensus, the aims of this study were to summarise the available literature and assess the evidence for different follow‐up and screening strategies.DesignWe conducted a systematic review by searching PubMed and Embase. Twenty articles were included, of which fourteen only provided information on follow‐up of known acute Q‐fever cases, four presented data on identification of previously unknown C. burnetii infections, and two had information on both topics.ResultsThe conversion rate of acute to chronic Q‐fever ranged from 0 to 5·0%. Most studies advised serological follow‐up of acute Q‐fever patients, but without consistent advice on optimum timing and duration. The recommendation to use echocardiography for all acute Q‐fever patients to detect valvular damage remains controversial. Screening of high‐risk patients in an outbreak setting is advised by studies investigating such strategy.ConclusionsThere is sufficient evidence to support serological follow‐up of all known acute Q‐fever patients at least once during the first year following the acute infection, and more frequently in patients with known risk factors for chronic disease, such as heart valve‐ or vascular prosthesis. Screening of risk groups should be considered in outbreaks of Q‐fever.
Conserved action of β‐catenin during female fate determination in the red‐eared slider turtle
Authors: Mork Lindsey , Capel Blanche 
Published: March 2013

SUMMARYIn reptiles such as the red‐eared slider turtle Trachemys scripta, development of an ovary from the bipotential gonad requires a coordinated expansion of the cortical domain and regression of the medulla. While estrogen, which is necessary and sufficient for ovarian development in non‐mammalian vertebrates, is thought to feminize both compartments, it remains unclear whether there is a signaling relationship between the two domains that coordinates their fates. We show that aromatase, the estrogen‐synthesizing enzyme, is localized to the medulla of the differentiating turtle ovary and that differentiation of the medulla precedes and is independent of cortical expansion. Coordinated feminization of the two domains may therefore rely on an estrogenic signal from the differentiating medulla. In eutherian mammals, where estrogen is dispensable for early ovary development, the canonical Wnt signaling pathway is critical for female fate determination. Whether this function is conserved among vertebrates and how it is potentially integrated with estrogen signaling are uncertain. Using a novel in vitro turtle gonad culture system, we demonstrate that ectopic activation of the canonical Wnt signaling pathway in presumptive male gonads induced a partial sex‐reversal of the medulla, but inhibition of the pathway was not sufficient to sex‐reverse differentiating ovaries. These patterns are similar to those previously observed in mice. Wnt signaling appears to function downstream of estrogen, as ectopic activation of the pathway rescued female development when estrogen synthesis was inhibited. Our findings therefore suggest that the ovary‐promoting effects of the Wnt signaling pathway may be functionally conserved between mammals and reptiles.
Phylogenetic analyses of termite post‐embryonic sequences illuminate caste and developmental pathway evolution
Authors: Legendre Frédéric , Whiting Michael F. , Grandcolas Philippe 
Published: March 2013

SUMMARYTermites are highly eusocial insects with a caste polyphenism (i.e., discontinuous morphological differences between castes) and elaborated behaviors. While the developmental pathways leading to caste occurrence are well‐known in many species, the evolutionary origin of these pathways is still obscure. Recent molecular phylogenetic studies suggest multiple independent origins of sterile castes in termites, reviving a 30 years old debate. We demonstrate here that diploid sterile castes (“true” workers) evolved several times independently in this group and that this caste was lost at least once in a lineage with developmentally more flexible workers called pseudergates or “false” workers. We also infer that flexibility in post‐embryonic development was acquired multiple times independently during termite evolution. We suggest that focusing on detailed developmental pathways in phylogenetic analyses is essential for elucidating the origin of caste polyphenism in termites.
Planthopper‐rice interactions: unequal stresses on pure‐line and hybrid rice under similar experimental conditions
Authors: Crisol Eduardo , Almazan Ma. Liberty P. , Jones Peter W. , Horgan Finbarr G. 
Published: March 2013

AbstractHybrid and pure‐line (inbred) rice [Oryza sativa L. (Poaceae)] varieties have distinct physiologies, particularly as related to their nutrient requirements. These differences could confound the results and interpretation of experiments that compare rice varieties grown in pots for their resistance and responses to herbivores. In this study, a series of experiments was conducted to identify potentially confounding interactions between pot size (soil volume), fertilizer regime, and the use of acetate insect cages with rice line type (hybrid, fertile parental inbred, and male sterile inbred) during bioassays with the brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens (Stål) (Hemiptera: Delphacidae). The growth of hybrid rice was often limited (relatively low biomass and low grain production) compared to fertile inbred lines even in large pots (7 200 ml) and when grown without added fertilizer. Several interactions between the effects of growth conditions and line type were detected. Acetate cages caused a significant reduction in grain yield in hybrids, but not in inbreds, mainly resulting from a cage‐induced decrease in grain weight (smaller grains). Hybrids and male sterile lines often had higher root or above‐ground biomass in the largest caged pots compared with fertile inbred lines, but biomass was similar in smaller pots, indicating that the large pots allowed longer unimpeded growth of fertile inbreds, but not other line types. There were no interactions between the presence or absence of planthoppers with line type or experimental conditions. All line types were equally susceptible to planthoppers. Often the effects of planthopper feeding on plant fitness (i.e., tolerance) were apparent when plants were grown in large pots but not in small pots, particularly for hybrid lines and under high nitrogen regimes. On the basis of these results we recommend that researchers ensure that plants are not unequally stressed by inadequate growth conditions during comparative studies with herbivores on physiologically distinct rice varieties or rice species. We recommend the use of large pots (soil volume) and lower fertilizer levels with young, non‐reproductive plants during comparative bioassays with planthoppers. Field cages are recommended for hybrid‐inbred comparisons during older plant stages but these are subject to a range of other confounding variables.
Feasting in fresh water: impacts of food concentration on freshwater tolerance and the evolution of food × salinity response during the expansion from saline into fresh water habitats
Authors: Lee Carol Eunmi , Moss Wynne E. , Olson Nora , Chau Kevin Fongching , Chang Yu‐Mei , Johnson Kelsey E. 
Published: March 2013

AbstractSaline to freshwater invasions have become increasingly common in recent years. A key hypothesis is that rates of freshwater invasions have been amplified in recent years by increased food concentration, yet this hypothesis has remained unexplored. We examined whether elevated food concentration could enhance freshwater tolerance, and whether this effect evolves following saline to freshwater invasions. We examined physiological response to salinity and food concentration in a 2 × 2 factorial design, using ancestral brackish and freshwater invading populations of the copepod Eurytemora affinis. We found that high food concentration significantly increases low‐salinity tolerance. This effect was reduced in the freshwater population, indicating evolution following the freshwater invasion. Thus, ample food could enable freshwater invasions, allowing subsequent evolution of low‐salinity tolerance even under food‐poor conditions. We also compared effects of food concentration on freshwater survival between two brackish populations from the native range. Impacts of food concentration on freshwater survival differed between the brackish populations, suggesting variation in functional properties affecting their propensity to invade freshwater habitats. The key implication is that high food concentration could profoundly extend range expansions of brackishwater species into freshwater habitats, potentially allowing for condition‐specific competition between saline invaders and resident freshwater species.
Regional Social Inequalities and Social Deprivation in Guangdong Province, China
Authors: Yuan Yuan , Wu Fulong 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThis article examines social deprivation at a regional scale using the case of Guangdong province, China. Counties, county‐level cities, and districts of prefecture cities are selected as the units of analysis. At the provincial level, a significant variation is found in terms of the social deprivation index, showing a pattern of increasing deprivation from the core of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) to the peripheral areas of Guangdong province. In the PRD, social development conditions are significantly different among these units, whereas the level of economic development is less differentiated. Social deprivation in urban areas is considerably lower than in rural areas. The differences between cities are significant, showing a bifurcation trend, whereas rural areas seem to be similar. Social disparities in Guangdong province are derived from unequal economic growth as well as social and regional policies.
Popular and Smart: Why Scholarship on the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain Still Matters
Authors: deVries Jacqueline R. 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThe history of the women’s suffrage movement in the British Isles suffers from the perception that little new is left to be said. However, more than a dozen new books demonstrate that the field is still vibrant. This new scholarship illuminates not only the historical contours of feminism, but also the complex, changing political cultures of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Historians have reworked the usual chronologies to reveal the long trajectory and shifting dynamics of women’s political participation in the 19th and 20th centuries. They remain sensitive to class dynamics, but also explore how region, ethnicity, religious affiliation and social networks made a difference to the way in which women conceptualized citizenship and exercised political agency. Increasingly, suffrage historians define the movement broadly and view feminism as a shifting discourse, so that even anti‐suffragists are included among these categories. This new crop of books contributes to the field’s ever‐expanding empirical sophistication, and the best make eminently clear why the study of women’s suffrage is still relevant and popular, among both scholars and the broader public.
The Epistemology and Politics of the Accidental: Connecting the Accident’s Intellectual and Cultural Historiography
Authors: Vieira Ryan Anthony 
Published: March 2013

AbstractIn recent years, historians on both sides of the Atlantic have begun to reconsider the accident as an historical phenomenon. Whereas the historical treatment of accidents between the 1950s and 1980s tended to focus on how the accident contributed to a larger narrative of progress, the more recent literature has begun to focus on the accident’s role in wider social, political, and cultural contexts. As the historiography has developed, however, there has been only limited theoretical debate across sub‐disciplinary lines. The present paper does not represent an exhaustive examination of the recent historical literature on accidents in both Europe and North America. Instead, it focusses on bridging the gap between those historians who have studied the intellectual development of the accident as a concept and those who have studied the cultural intersection between the accident and power. It does this by focussing on the centrality of narrative in both historiographic trajectories and by suggesting that through a focus on narrative we can connect the epistemological assumptions inherent within the accident concept and the strategies employed to culturally manage the anxieties and stresses which violent technological disasters bring to the surface.
Medieval Urban Environmental History
Authors: Magnusson Roberta J. 
Published: March 2013

AbstractMedieval urban environmental history lies at the intersection of environmental history, urban history, and the history of public health. For many years, medieval towns were thought to be universally foul and filthy, a stereotype that remains common in both academic and popular histories. Since the 1920s, however, historians who work closely with the documentary evidence have challenged such a one‐dimensional characterization. A growing body evidence from urban archaeological sites has created the potential for a more integrated, interdisciplinary approach to the study of urban ecosystems and waste management. Recent environmental scholarship has also focused on ‘urban footprints’ (the impact of cities on their supply hinterlands) and on the social construction of medieval attitudes to hygiene.
Phosphorus in agricultural soils around the Baltic Sea – comparison of laboratory methods as indices for phosphorus leaching to waters
Authors: Eriksson A. K. , Ulén B. , Berzina L. , Iital A. , Janssons V. , Sileika A. S. , Toomsoo A 
Published: March 2013

AbstractIn this study we investigated the phosphorus (P) content of Baltic soils. In the first set of analyses, 99 soil samples from the Baltic states and Sweden (soil set 1, representing seven different catchments or experimental plots) were analysed for soil P using four extraction methods: ammonium lactate (PAL), double lactate (PDL), Mehlich 3 (PM3) and carbonate (POlsen) (r = 0.85–0.97). In absolute values, results from PM3, PDL and POlsen gave means of 71, 61 and 20%, respectively, of the value from the PAL extraction method. Significantly different relationships were found between P soil concentrations and pH of the extract. In addition, soil pH and organic matter content were found to be of importance. Secondly, we tested 110 soil samples (soil set 2) from five different Swedish monitoring fields with clay soils where PAL clearly correlated with soil P extracted in calcium chloride (PCaCl2) (r = 0.95). Values of a single‐point phosphorus sorption index (PSI) correlated with the aluminium concentration (AlAL) in the lactate extract (r = 0.91) and with (AlOX) in the oxalate extract (r = 0.96). None of the soil P tests with different extraction agents – calcium chloride (PCaCl2), water (Pw), POlsen or PAL– correlated with the mean annual flow‐weighted concentration (1999–2010) of dissolved reactive P (DRP) in drainage water. Neither was there any clear relationship between DRP concentration in drainage water and these tests combined with PSI or with other sorption indices including extracted Al and iron (Fe). However, DRP was related to the clay content of the topsoil (r = 0.91, P < 0.05).
Evolution of stickleback feeding behaviour: genetics of population divergence at different ontogenetic stages
Authors: Herczeg G. , Ab Ghani N. I. , Merilä J. 
Published: March 2013

AbstractThe evolutionary significance of individual consistency in a given behaviour – called animal personality – has been subject to a lot of recent research. However, the genetic underpinnings of population divergence in mean personality have rarely been studied, especially across different ontogenetic stages. Previous work has shown that marine vs. pond populations of nine‐spined sticklebacks (Pungitius pungitius) have undergone adaptive divergence in a series of fitness‐related traits, including behaviour. One particular behavioural trait important in this system is feeding activity: giant pond sticklebacks are more active feeders than their normal sized marine conspecifics. In a common garden experiment, we raised individuals from pure and hybrid F1‐generation crosses of a highly divergent marine – pond population pair to see if (i) feeding activity and/or its ontogenetic change was consistent between individuals, and if (ii) population divergence at different ontogenetic stages could be explained by additive genetic, nonadditive genetic or maternal effects. We found that feeding activity decreased with age, but that these changes were consistently different among both individuals and crosses. The among cross patterns were consistent with a nonadditive genetic scenario: in the early period pond sticklebacks expressed dominance for high feeding activity, while in the late period marine sticklebacks expressed dominance for low feeding activity. We conclude that nine‐spined sticklebacks exhibit different feeding personalities, and that the population divergence in feeding personality is explainable by age‐dependent expression of genetic dominance.