bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Why do placentas evolve? A test of the life‐history facilitation hypothesis in two clades in the genus Poeciliopsis representing two independent origins of placentas
Authors: Bassar Ronald D. , Auer Sonya K. , Reznick David N. 
Published: March 2014

Summary

Most of what we know about placentas comes from mammals, yet little can be learned from them about the adaptive significance of the placental mode of reproduction because they all derived their placenta from a single common ancestor that lived over 100 million years ago. We can make inferences about the adaptive significance of placentation from fish in the family Poeciliidae because there have been multiple, recent origins of placentation, affording an opportunity to compare close relatives with and without placentas and to seek properties that are common to each origin of placentation.

Here, we used field collections and a common garden study to quantify the degree of placentation and related it to aspects of the life history in two clades of live‐bearing fish from the genus Poeciliopsis that each contains an independent origin of placentation. Doing so enables us to test the ‘life history facilitation hypothesis’, or the proposal that the placenta evolved to facilitate the evolution of some other feature of the life history.

We found that the evolution of placentation in each clade is tightly correlated with the evolution of other components of the life history, but that the nature of the association is radically different across the two clades. In the Northern Clade the magnitude of post‐fertilization maternal provisioning is negatively correlated with age at maturity, mass at maturity, offspring dry mass and interlitter interval. In contrast, degree of matrotrophy in the Southern Clade is positively correlated with age at maturity, mass at maturity, offspring dry mass and inter‐litter interval.

There is thus no consistent relationship between the evolution of placentas and other features of the life history, which negates those proposals that the placenta evolved to facilitate the evolution of other features of the life history. However, there is a negative correlation between degree of placentation and ovary dry mass and reproductive allocation common to both clades, suggesting that placentation may be an adaptation that facilitates a reduction in reproductive allocation.
Decreased root heterogeneity and increased root length following grassland invasion
Authors: Vaness Brenda M. , Wilson Scott D. , MacDougall Andrew S. 
Published: March 2014

Summary

Plant invasions can be promoted by environmental heterogeneity, but the opposite effect, the impact of plant invasion on heterogeneity, has received little attention. Grassland invasions might contribute to decreased spatial heterogeneity because invaders tend to be larger than native vegetation. Lowered heterogeneity may contribute to the low diversity of invaded communities, as well as to the persistence of invasive populations.

We compared the spatial heterogeneity of roots and resources in uninvaded native grassland and in stands invaded by a relatively large exotic grass (Agropyron cristatum), in four combinations of mowing and nitrogen (N) addition. We focused on roots because they account for the majority of primary production in grasslands.

The spatial heterogeneity of root length (m root m−2 rhizotron image) and root production was significantly lower beneath A. cristatum than uninvaded grassland. This result was consistent in all combinations of mowing and N addition.

Beneath the invader, root length was significantly greater, and the proportion of samples that contained roots was significantly higher. This suggests that the invader decreased spatial heterogeneity by more completely filling the soil volume with roots.

Resource heterogeneity varied significantly between vegetation types in just one of four cases examined, suggesting that invader effects on resource heterogeneity were small relative to its effects on root heterogeneity.

These results suggest a novel mechanism promoting invader success and persistence: high root heterogeneity, lower root length and empty soil volumes in native grassland may make it relatively vulnerable to invasion, while reduced heterogeneity and greater root length in invaded grasslands may sustain stable, low‐diversity communities dominated by the invader. Lowered heterogeneity accompanying invasion may partly account for the wide‐spread occurrence of low‐diversity, invader‐dominated grasslands in North America.
MicroRNA‐130a regulates autophagy of endothelial progenitor cells through Runx3
Authors: Xu Quanfu , Meng Shu , Liu Bo , Li Mao‐Quan , Li Yeting , Fang Lu , Li Yi‐Gang 
Published: March 2014

SummaryDysfunction of endothelial progenitor cells (EPC) contribute to diabetic vascular disease. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are key regulators of diverse cellular processes, including angiogenesis. We recently reported that downregulated miR‐130a in patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) results in EPC dysfunction, including increased apoptosis, likely via its target runt‐related transcription factor 3 (Runx3). However, whether miR‐130a affects the autophagy of EPC is unknown. The aim of the present study was to explore the effects of miR‐130a on the autophagy and cell death of EPC, as well as their expression of Beclin 1 (BECN1; an initiator of autophagosome formation) and the anti‐apoptotic protein Bcl2 (which binds to and inactivates BECN1), and the role of Runx3 in mediating these effects. The EPC were cultured from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of diabetic patients and non‐diabetic controls. Cells were transfected with an miR‐130a inhibitor, or mimic‐miR‐130a or mimic‐miR‐130a plus lentiviral vector expressing Runx3 to manipulate miR‐130a and/or Runx3 levels. The number of autophagosomes was counted under transmission electron microscopy and cell death was examined by flow cytometry. The mRNA expression of Beclin1 was measured by real‐time polymerase chain reaction and the protein expression of Beclin1 and Bcl2 was determined by western blotting. Both the number of autophagosomes and Beclin1 expression were increased in EPC from patients with DM. Inhibition of miR‐130a increased the number of autophagosomes and Beclin1 expression, but attenuated Bcl2 expression. Overexpression of miR‐130a decreased the number of autophagosomes, cell death and Beclin1 expression, but promoted Bcl2 expression; these effects were mediated by Runx3. In conclusion, miR‐130a is important for maintaining normal autophagy levels and promoting the survival of EPC via regulation of Bcl‐2 and Beclin1 expression, via Runx3. MiR‐130a may be a regulator linking apoptosis and the autophagy of EPC.
Gay men and intimate partner violence: a gender analysis
Authors: Oliffe John L. , Han Christina , Maria Estephanie Sta. , Lohan Maria , Howard Terry , Stewart Donna E. , MacMillan Harriet 
Published: March 2014

AbstractThough intimate partner violence (IPV) is predominately understood as a women's health issue most often emerging within heterosexual relationships, there is increasing recognition of the existence of male victims of IPV. In this qualitative study we explored connections between masculinities and IPV among gay men. The findings show how recognising IPV was based on an array of participant experiences, including the emotional, physical and sexual abuse inflicted by their partner, which in turn led to three processes. Normalising and concealing violence referred to the participants’ complicity in accepting violence as part of their relationship and their reluctance to disclose that they were victims of IPV. Realising a way out included the participants’ understandings that the triggers for, and patterns of, IPV would best be quelled by leaving the relationship. Nurturing recovery detailed the strategies employed by participants to mend and sustain their wellbeing in the aftermath of leaving an abusive relationship. In terms of masculinities and men's health research, the findings reveal the limits of idealising hegemonic masculinities and gender relations as heterosexual, while highlighting a plurality of gay masculinities and the need for IPV support services that bridge the divide between male and female as well as between homosexual and heterosexual.
Long‐term ill health and the social embeddedness of work: a study in a post‐industrial, multi‐ethnic locality in the UK
Authors: Qureshi Kaveri , Salway Sarah , Chowbey Punita , Platt Lucinda 
Published: March 2014

AbstractAgainst the background of an increasingly individualising welfare‐to‐work regime, sociological studies of incapacity and health‐related worklessness have called for an appreciation of the role of history and context in patterning individual experience. This article responds to that call by exploring the work experiences of long‐term sick people in East London, a post‐industrial, multi‐ethnic locality. It demonstrates how the individual experiences of long‐term sickness and work are embedded in social relations of class, generation, ethnicity and gender, which shape people's formal and informal routes to work protection, work‐seeking practices and responses to worklessness. We argue that this social embeddedness requires greater attention in welfare‐to‐work policy.
‘Mafia Baroque’: post‐socialist architecture and urban planning inBulgaria
Authors: Holleran Max 
Published: March 2014

AbstractThis paper traces the reception of the architectural style known as ‘Mafia Baroque’ within the professions of architecture and urban planning inBulgaria. The debate within these professions was strongly linked to the general decline of power among former intellectual elites and the specific decline of architects and planners, who were sidelined as arbiters of ‘good taste’ and disempowered as regulators of urban growth. The reaction to this style also highlights the rise in public concern over corruption and organized crime and dissatisfaction with post‐socialist urbanization. This paper chronicles the extent of changes in construction and regulation inBulgaria during the 1990s and argues that planners and architects were challenged not only by their professional marginalization but also by a deeper embarrassment over cultural change. It then relates this debate to broader post‐socialist anxieties over insufficient regulation of urbanization and fear of failing to meetWesternEuropean goals for economic and political change.
Challenging a culture of racial equivalence
Authors: Song Miri 
Published: March 2014

AbstractWe live at a time when our understandings and conceptualizations of ‘racism’ are often highly imprecise, broad, and used to describe a wide range of racialized phenomena. In this article, I raise some important questions about how the term racism is used and understood in contemporary British society by drawing on some recent cases of alleged racism in football and politics, many of which have been played out via new media technologies. A broader understanding of racism, through the use of the term ‘racialization’, has been helpful in articulating a more nuanced and complex understanding of racial incidents, especially of people's (often ambivalent) beliefs and behaviours. However, the growing emphasis upon ‘racialization’ has led to a conceptualization of racism which increasingly involves multiple perpetrators, victims, and practices without enough consideration of how and why particular interactions and practices constitute racism as such. The trend toward a growing culture of racial equivalence is worrying, as it denudes the idea of racism of its historical basis, severity and power. These frequent and commonplace assertions of racism in the public sphere paradoxically end up trivializing and homogenizing quite different forms of racialized interactions. I conclude that we need to retain the term ‘racism’, but we need to differentiate more clearly between ‘racism’ (as an historical and structured system of domination) from the broader notion of ‘racialization’.
The intersection of youth masculinities, decreasing homophobia and class: an ethnography
Authors: McCormack Mark 
Published: March 2014

AbstractThis article examines the emergence of progressive attitudes toward homosexuality among working‐class boys in a sixth form in the south of England to develop an intersectional analysis of class, youth masculinities and decreasing homophobia. Drawing on three months of ethnographic data collection, I find that working‐class male youth intellectualize pro‐gay attitudes and that homophobic language is almost entirely absent from the setting. I document the presence of homosocial tactility, as well as the valuing of friendship and emotional closeness. However, these behaviours are less pronounced than documented among middle‐class boys, and I use these findings to advance understanding of how class influences the development of inclusive attitudes and behaviours. Inclusive masculinity theory is used to understand these findings, refining the theory and extending it to a new demographic.
Differentiating selves: middle‐aged gay men in Manchester's less visible ‘homospaces’
Authors: Simpson Paul 
Published: March 2014

AbstractScholarship on gay bars/‘villages’ has overshadowed study of ‘homospaces’ (gay fields of existence) less available/inaccessible to a wider public – websites, saunas and social/support groups. Based on interviews with 27 men aged 39–61 living in Manchester, this article addresses what middle‐aged gay men's accounts of these particular homospaces say about their experiences of age/ageing and how relations of ageism work within them. Specifically, I focus on how study participants use ‘ageing capital’ in these fields to differentiate themselves from their younger counterparts in three ways. First, ageing capital is implicated in capitulation to gay ageism and a reverse ageism – visible in accounts of differentiation from the ‘superficial,’ reckless ways of sexualized space that participants associated with younger gay men. Second, it was visible in accounts of resistance to/questioning of gay ageism – strategies that could make sexualized homospaces more habitable. Third, ageing capital was implicated in negotiation with ageing/gay ageism – visible in ambivalent stances hovering between compliance and resistance – towards ageing and ageism, which could reinforce constraints on uses/display of the body. The first and third accounts indicate the multidirectional character of gay ageism, limits on the deployment on ageing capital and show how middle‐aged men can undermine their generational claims to represent a more authentic form of gay male embodiment. En route, I also complicate stereotypical thinking that gay social/support groups represent more inclusive, empowering space whilst overtly sexualized spaces of the ‘gay scene’ represent the opposite.
Effect of emulsifying salts containing potassium on the melting properties of block‐type dairy cheese analogue
Authors: Schatz Kristina , Hoffmann Wolfgang , Schrader Katrin , Maurer Andrea 
Published: March 2014

Substituting sodium with potassium in emulsifying salts of pasteurized block‐type dairy cheese analogues was investigated. Rennet casein and butter were used as protein and fat sources for the manufacture of a product with 51% dry matter and 50% fat in dry matter. Different emulsifying salt blends contained sodium or potassium citrate and sodium polyphosphate. The cheese analogues were tested for their melting properties by oscillation rheometry and by empirical tests for meltability and fat release after 2 days, 4 and 12 weeks of cold storage. A recipe containing about 60% less sodium and a typical standard recipe without potassium showed very similar results during 4 weeks of cold storage.
Microbial and physiochemical changes in yoghurts containing different Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus strains in association with Lactobacillus plantarum as an adjunct culture
Authors: Mirlohi Maryam , Soleimanian‐Zad Sabihe , Dokhani Shahram , Sheikh‐Zeinodin Mahmoud 
Published: March 2014

Two strains of slow and normal acid‐producing Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, mixed separately with Streptococcus thermophilus, were used in the preparation of yoghurt with or without Lactobacillus plantarum A7. Viable cell counts of lactic bacteria, pH, lactic acid and acetic acid concentrations, soluble nitrogen content, spontaneous syneresis, viscosity and firmness were studied at selected points during the refrigerated storage period. Results showed that survival of L. plantarum A7 in yoghurt was independent of the acidification capability of L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus strains which had already been characterised in their pure culture. Thus, in the preparation of probiotic yoghurt, using slow acid‐producing L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus strain in combination with nondairy lactobacilli postfermentation acidification is not restricted but instability in other physicochemical properties of the yoghurt may be expected.
Echinoderm microtubule‐associated protein‐like 4‐anaplastic lymphoma kinase rearrangement and epidermal growth factor receptor mutation coexisting in Chinese patients with lung adenocarcinoma
Authors: Zhu Jianfei , Cai Ling , Yang Haoxian , Wen Yinsheng , Wang Junye , Rong Tiehua , Shao Jianyong , Zhang Lanjun 
Published: March 2014

AbstractBackgroundThe echinoderm microtubule‐associated protein‐like 4‐anaplastic lymphoma kinase (EML4‐ALK) rearrangement is almost in mutual exclusion to epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and v‐Ki‐ras2 Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog (KRAS) mutations, with rare exceptions. This study aimed to search for the coexisting gene alterations in Chinese patients with lung adenocarcinoma (LAC).MethodsWe detected mutations in the EGFR, KRAS, and ALK gene rearrangements in samples from 131 Chinese patients with LAC. ALK rearrangements were identified by fluorescent in situ hybridization. Mutations in EGFR (exons 19 to 21) and KRAS (codons 12 and 13) were determined by real time polymerase chain reaction.ResultsAll patients were classified into four distinct genotype groups: EGFR mutations (n = 63; 48.1%), ALK rearrangements (n = 9; 6.9%), KRAS mutations (n = 8; 6.1%), and the wild‐type (unmutated) genotype of all three genes (WT/WT/WT) (n = 53; 40.5%). Interestingly, two never‐smoking women (2/131, 1.5%) harbored coexisting ALK rearrangement and EGFR mutation. ALK rearrangement occurred more frequently in young patients (8/9) (P = 0.687), non‐smokers (8/9) (P = 0.077), and those who had no family history of LAC (8/9) (P = 1.000); all KRAS mutations occurred in the EGFR wild type (P = 0.007). KRAS mutations were generally detected in young patients (6/8) (P = 0.658) and in those who had no family history (7/8) (P = 1.000); EGFR mutations correlated with gender (P = 0.001), and smoking status (P < 0.001).ConclusionsTwo patients harboring both EGFR mutation and EML4‐ALK rearrangement were detected in this study. Our data was apparently inconsistent with the traditional view that the EML4‐ALK fusion gene in patients is resistant to EGFR‐TKIs.
Calculating second derivatives of population growth rates for ecology and evolution
Authors: Shyu Esther , Caswell Hal 
Published: March 2014

Summary

Second derivatives of the population growth rate measure the curvature of its response to demographic, physiological or environmental parameters. The second derivatives quantify the response of sensitivity results to perturbations, provide a classification of types of selection and provide one way to calculate sensitivities of the stochastic growth rate.

Using matrix calculus, we derive the second derivatives of three population growth rate measures: the discrete‐time growth rate λ, the continuous‐time growth rate r = log λ and the net reproductive rate R0, which measures per‐generation growth.

We present a suite of formulae for the second derivatives of each growth rate and show how to compute these derivatives with respect to projection matrix entries and to lower‐level parameters affecting those matrix entries.

We also illustrate several ecological and evolutionary applications for these second derivative calculations with a case study for the tropical herb Calathea ovandensis.
Temporal validation plots: quantifying how well correlative species distribution models predict species' range changes over time
Authors: Rapacciuolo Giovanni , Roy David B. , Gillings Simon , Purvis Andy 
Published: March 2014

Summary

The use of data documenting how species' distributions have changed over time is crucial for testing how well correlative species distribution models (SDMs) predict species' range changes. So far, however, little attention has been given to developing a reliable methodological framework for using such data.

We develop a new tool – the temporal validation (TV) plot – specifically aimed at making use of species' distribution records at two times for a comprehensive assessment of the prediction accuracy of SDMs over time.

We extend existing presence–absence calibration plots to make use of distribution records from two time periods. TV plots visualize the agreement between change in modelled probabilities of presence and the probability of observing sites gained or lost between time periods. We then present three measures of prediction accuracy that can be easily calculated from TV plots.

We present our methodological framework using a virtual species in a simplified landscape and then provide a real‐world case study using distribution records for two species of breeding birds from two time periods of intensive recording effort across Great Britain.

Together with existing approaches, TV plots and their associated measures offer a simple tool for testing how well SDMs model species' observed range changes – perhaps the best way available to assess their ability to predict likely future changes.