bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Association Between Earthquake Events and Cholera Outbreaks: A Cross-country 15-year Longitudinal Analysis
Authors: Sumner Steven A. , Turner Elizabeth L. , Thielman Nathan M. 
Published: October 2013

AbstractIntroductionLarge earthquakes can cause population displacement, critical sanitation infrastructure damage, and increased threats to water resources, potentially predisposing populations to waterborne disease epidemics such as cholera.ProblemThe risk of cholera outbreaks after earthquake disasters remains uncertain. A cross-country analysis of World Health Organization (WHO) cholera data that would contribute to this discussion has yet to be published.MethodsA cross-country longitudinal analysis was conducted among 63 low- and middle-income countries from 1995-2009. The association between earthquake disasters of various effect sizes and a relative spike in cholera rates for a given country was assessed utilizing fixed-effects logistic regression and adjusting for gross domestic product per capita, water and sanitation level, flooding events, percent urbanization, and under-five child mortality. Also, the association between large earthquakes and cholera rate increases of various degrees was assessed.ResultsForty-eight of the 63 countries had at least one year with reported cholera infections during the 15-year study period. Thirty-six of these 48 countries had at least one earthquake disaster. In adjusted analyses, country-years with ≥10,000 persons affected by an earthquake had 2.26 times increased odds (95 CI, 0.89-5.72,P= .08) of having a greater than average cholera rate that year compared to country-years having <10,000 individuals affected by an earthquake. The association between large earthquake disasters and cholera infections appeared to weaken as higher levels of cholera rate increases were tested.ConclusionA trend of increased risk of greater than average cholera rates when more people were affected by an earthquake in a country-year was noted. However these findings did not reach statistical significance at traditional levels and may be due to chance. Frequent large-scale cholera outbreaks after earthquake disasters appeared to be relatively uncommon.SumnerS,TurnerE,ThielmanN.Association between earthquake events and cholera outbreaks: a cross-country 15-year longitudinal analysis.Prehosp Disaster Med.2013;28(6):1-6.
Association of total protein intake with bone mineral density and bone loss in men and women from the Framingham Offspring Study
Authors: Sahni Shivani , Broe Kerry E , Tucker Katherine L , McLean Robert R , Kiel Douglas P , Cupples L Adrienne , Hannan Marian T 
Published: October 2013

AbstractObjectiveTo examine (i) the association of percentage of total energy intake from protein (protein intake %) with bone mineral density (BMD, g/cm2) and bone loss at the femoral neck, trochanter and lumbar spine (L2–L4) and (ii) Ca as an effect modifier.SettingThe Framingham Offspring Study.SubjectsMen (n 1280) and women (n 1639) completed an FFQ in 1992–1995 or 1995–1998 and underwent baseline BMD measurement by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry in 1996–2000. Men (n 495) and women (n 680) had follow-up BMD measured in 2002–2005.DesignCohort study using multivariable regression to examine the association of protein intake % with each BMD, adjusting for covariates. Statistical interaction between protein intake % and Ca (total, dietary, supplemental) intake was examined.ResultsThe mean age at baseline was 61 (sd 9) years. In the cross-sectional analyses, protein intake % was positively associated with all BMD sites (P range: 0·02–0·04) in women but not in men. Significant interactions were observed with total Ca intake (<800 mg/d v. ≥800 mg/d) in women at all bone sites (P range: 0·002–0·02). Upon stratification, protein intake % was positively associated with all BMD sites (P range: 0·04–0·10) in women with low Ca intakes but not in those with high Ca intakes. In the longitudinal analyses, in men, higher protein intake % was associated with more bone loss at the trochanter (P = 0·01) while no associations were seen in women, regardless of Ca intake.ConclusionsThis suggests that greater protein intake benefits women especially those with lower Ca intakes. However, protein effects are not significant for short-term changes in bone density. Contrastingly, in men, higher protein intakes lead to greater bone loss at the trochanter. Longer follow-up is required to examine the impact of protein on bone loss.
Perceptual Learning of Acoustic Noise by Individuals With Dyslexia
Authors: Agus Trevor R. , Carrión-Castillo Amaia , Pressnitzer Daniel , Ramus Franck 
Published: October 2013

PurposeA phonological deficit is thought to affect most individuals with developmental dyslexia. The present study addresses whether the phonological deficit is caused by difficulties with perceptual learning of fine acoustic details.MethodA demanding test of nonverbal auditory memory, “noise learning,” was administered to both adults with dyslexia and control adult participants. On each trial, listeners had to decide whether a stimulus was a 1-s noise token or 2 abutting presentations of the same 0.5-s noise token (repeated noise). Without the listener's knowledge, the exact same noise tokens were presented over many trials. An improved ability to perform the task for such “reference” noises reflects learning of their acoustic details.ResultsListeners with dyslexia did not differ from controls in any aspect of the task, qualitatively or quantitatively. They required the same amount of training to achieve discrimination of repeated from nonrepeated noises, and they learned the reference noises as often and as rapidly as the control group. However, they did show all the hallmarks of dyslexia, including a well-characterized phonological deficit.ConclusionThe data did not support the hypothesis that deficits in basic auditory processing or nonverbal learning and memory are the cause of the phonological deficit in dyslexia.
Conversational and Narrative Speaking in Adolescents: Examining the Use of Complex Syntax
Authors: Nippold Marilyn A. , Frantz-Kaspar Megan W. , Cramond Paige M. , Kirk Cecilia , Hayward-Mayhew Christine , MacKinnon Melanie 
Published: October 2013

Purpose
Few tools are available to examine the narrative speaking ability of adolescents. Hence, the authors designed a new narrative task and sought to determine whether it would elicit a higher level of syntactic complexity than a conversational task in adolescents with typical language development.

Method

Forty adolescents (
M
age
= 14;0 [years;months]; 20 boys and 20 girls) were individually interviewed. Each adolescent participated in a standard conversational task followed by a narrative task that involved listening to fables and retelling the stories. It was predicted that the narrative task would elicit a higher level of syntactic complexity than the conversational task because fables, although superficially simple stories, express rather sophisticated meanings.

Results
The narrative task elicited greater syntactic complexity than the conversational task as measured by mean length of C-unit and clausal density. Additionally, the 2 syntactic measures, mean length of C-unit and clausal density, were closely associated on both tasks.

Conclusion
Fables can elicit a high level of syntactic complexity in adolescents with typical language development. Future studies are needed to build a normative database using fables.
Increase in Speech Recognition due to Linguistic Mismatch Between Target and Masker Speech: Monolingual and Simultaneous Bilingual Performance
Authors: Calandruccio Lauren , Zhou Haibo 
Published: October 2013

Purpose
To examine whether improved speech recognition during linguistically mismatched target–masker experiments is due to linguistic unfamiliarity of the masker speech or linguistic dissimilarity between the target and masker speech.

Method

Monolingual English speakers (
n
= 20) and English–Greek simultaneous bilinguals (
n
= 20) listened to English sentences in the presence of competing English and Greek speech. Data were analyzed using mixed-effects regression models to determine differences in English recogition performance between the 2 groups and 2 masker conditions.

Results
Results indicated that English sentence recognition for monolinguals and simultaneous English–Greek bilinguals improved when the masker speech changed from competing English to competing Greek speech.

Conclusion
The improvement in speech recognition that has been observed for linguistically mismatched target–masker experiments cannot be simply explained by the masker language being linguistically unknown or unfamiliar to the listeners. Listeners can improve their speech recognition in linguistically mismatched target–masker experiments even when the listener is able to obtain meaningful linguistic information from the masker speech.
Language Impairment From 4 to 12 Years: Prediction and Etiology
Authors: Hayiou-Thomas Marianna E. , Dale Philip S. , Plomin Robert 
Published: October 2013

Purpose
The authors of this article examined the etiology of developmental language impairment (LI) at 4 and 12 years of age, as well as the relationship between the 2.

Method

Phenotypic and quantitative genetic analyses using longitudinal data from the Twins Early Development Study (Oliver & Plomin, 2007) were conducted. A total of 2,923 pairs of twins (1,075 monozygotic [MZ]; 975 dizygotic same sex [DZss]; and 873 dizygotic opposite sex [DZos]) provided data at 4 and 12 years. At 4 years, (a) psychometric LI was defined on the basis of a low parent-reported expressive vocabulary score (−1.25
SD
s; 226 MZ and 115 DZss probands for genetic analysis); and (b) parent referral was defined as having seen a medical professional or speech-language pathologist following parental concern (112 MZ and 104 DZss probands). The 12-year language measure was a composite of 4 web-administered receptive language tests.

Results
(a) Psychometric LI at 4 years is more predictive than parent referral of poor language performance at age 12 years, and (b) parent referral is substantially and significantly more heritable than psychometric LI.

Conclusions
Parents' concern about their child's language development seems to be the marker of a more heritable disorder than poor expressive language skills alone. However, the language difficulties that arouse parental concern in preschool children, although more heritable, are not predictive of language difficulties in early adolescence. Rather, poor expressive language skills at age 4 years, psychometrically defined, are a better predictor than parent referral of continuing language difficulties at age 12 years.
Simulation and fabrication of capillary‐driven meander micromixer for short‐distance mixing
Authors: Chung C.‐K. , Lai C.C. , Shih T.R. , Chang E.C. , Chen S.W. 
Published: October 2013

In recent years, the emerging bio‐chip technology has used external powered pumps for fluidic pumping and mixing. The short‐term capillary‐driven micromixers with complex mixing structures also showed large potential for mixing devices. This reported work demonstrates the long‐term capillary‐driven meander micromixer with the planar design, short mixing distance and power‐free rapid fluid, transport functions which is compared with conventional syringe pump micormixers. The surface property of various materials was verified by contact angle measurement. Both intrinsic hydrophilic materials of glass and JSR photoresist were good candidates and selected for fabricating the capillary‐driven meander micromixer using simple photolithography, laser ablation and low‐temperature bonding technology without chemical etching and without the deposition process. The design and simulation of such an effective capillary‐driven micromixer have been performed for understanding the geometry effect on flow and mixing behaviour. The glass–JSR–glass capillary‐driven meander micromixer can improve mixing efficiency up to over 95% at a short distance of only 8 mm, and has potential for the application of power‐free microfluidic chip fabrication and bio‐medical examination in the future.
Suspended magnetic polymer structures fabricated using dose‐controlled ultraviolet exposure
Authors: Kuo Jui‐Chang , Li Chong‐Shuo , Cheng Hsueh‐Chien , Yang Yao‐Joe 
Published: October 2013

Presented is a process for fabricating suspended magnetic polymer structures with SU‐8 photoresist dispersed Fe3O4 nanoparticles. By controlling the exposure doses of ultraviolet (UV) is shown light, floating structures are patterned during the first UV exposure and then the anchor structures are patterned at the second exposure. It is shown that suspended magnetic polymer structures, such as doubly‐clamped beams, can be successfully fabricated and released using a single development process. In addition, the functionalities and characteristics of these magnetic doubly‐clamped beams are demonstrated and discussed. The resonant frequencies of these structures were measured under a sinusoidal magnetic field at an amplitude of 10.37 mT; the frequencies for structures 5 and 6 mm long were 5.21 and 4.18 kHz, respectively.
Enhancing tumor cell response to chemotherapy through nanoparticle-mediated codelivery of siRNA and cisplatin prodrug
Authors: Xu Xiaoyang , Xie Kun , Zhang Xue-Qing , Pridgen Eric M. , Park Ga Young , Cui Danica S. , Shi Jinjun , Wu Jun , Kantoff Philip W. , Lippard Stephen J. , Langer Robert , Walker Graham C. , Farokhzad Omid C. 
Published: October 2013

Significance
The development of acquired chemoresistance is often a clinical problem limiting the successful treatment of cancers. RNAi is showing promising results in human clinical trials. The combination of chemotherapy with RNAi approaches to suppress the expression of proteins involved in the emergence of drug resistance represents a promising synergistic strategy to circumvent or reverse acquired chemoresistance. Such combination therapy approaches require specific delivery vehicles to encapsulate and deliver chemotherapy and siRNA therapeutics simultaneously in a controlled manner. Herein, we describe a nanoparticle technology to codeliver a DNA-damaging chemotherapeutic and siRNAs that impair the cell’s ability to repair the DNA damage. This combination therapeutic approach can sensitize cancer cells to chemotherapeutics and shows superior tumor inhibition compared with monochemotherapy.
Endocannabinoid anandamide mediates hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction
Authors: Wenzel Daniela , Matthey Michaela , Bindila Laura , Lerner Raissa , Lutz Beat , Zimmer Andreas , Fleischmann Bernd K. 
Published: October 2013

SignificanceHypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction (HPV) is an important physiological reflex, which is only found in the lung and adapts perfusion to ventilation. HPV is potentially involved in hypoxia-induced pulmonary hypertension (PH) occurring in respiratory disorders. In this study we show that the endocannabinoid anandamide (AEA) via its fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH)-dependent metabolites is involved in HPV and PH. We have identified pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells as the source of hypoxia-induced AEA synthesis. Our results illustrate that the onset of PH is prevented inFAAH−/−mice or by treating wild-type mice with a FAAH antagonist for 3 wk of hypoxia. Thus, we demonstrate a previously undescribed signaling pathway underlying HPV and an alternative strategy for the treatment of common pulmonary diseases.
Differential expression of olfactory genes in the southern house mosquito and insights into unique odorant receptor gene isoforms
Authors: Leal Walter S. , Choo Young-Moo , Xu Pingxi , da Silva Cherre S. B. , Ueira-Vieira Carlos 
Published: October 2013

Significance
Mosquitoes use their acute sense of smell to locate hosts, oviposition sites, and repellents. Here, we investigated by next generation sequencing the key molecular components of the olfactory system of the southern house mosquito—a vector of West Nile virus. We studied differential expression of genes in antennae—the main olfactory organ—and nonolfactory tissues. Additionally, we prospected for unknown genes with transcripts enriched in antennae. Our approach, which was validated by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, cloning, and deorphanization, led to the identification of a large repertoire of putative olfactory genes. This study paved the way for a better understanding of the sense of smell of this mosquito species and led to a naturally occurring mosquito repellent.
Epstein–Barr virus nuclear antigen leader protein localizes to promoters and enhancers with cell transcription factors and EBNA2
Authors: Portal Daniel , Zhou Hufeng , Zhao Bo , Kharchenko Peter V. , Lowry Elizabeth , Wong Limsoon , Quackenbush John , Holloway Dustin , Jiang Sizun , Lu Yong , Kieff Elliott 
Published: October 2013

Significance
Epstein–Barr virus nuclear antigen (EBNA) leader protein (LP) and EBNA2 (E2) up-regulation of virus and cell gene expression is important for human B-lymphocyte conversion to continuous, potentially malignant, lymphoblast cell lines. Although the molecular mechanism(s) underlying LP and E2 regulation of cell gene expression have been partially elucidated, LP ChIP-sequencing studies have now revealed that LP and LP/E2 interact, genome-wide, with human B-cell transcription factors, mostly at or near prepatterned promoter sites, to increase cell transcription factor occupancies, increase activation-associated histone marks, and positively affect cell gene transcription.
Anthocyanin Content and Composition in Winter Blue Barley Cultivars and Lines
Authors: Diczházi István , Kursinszki László 
Published: October 2013

ABSTRACTThis study focuses on the examination of the total anthocyanin content (TAC) and spectrum of winter barley cultivars with blue caryopsis. Preparation of grain samples was simplified, and extraction was performed with 85% methanol acidified by 1% trifluoroacetic acid. Compared with our previous tests performed with 1% hydrochloric acid in aqueous methanol, the extraction process resulted in higher total anthocyanin content with more acylated derivatives. The TAC measured by spectrophotometry varied in two blue Hungarian cultivars and two lines from 46.9 to 84.4 mg/kg. The anthocyanin spectrum was analyzed by electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry. The predominant anthocyanins were delphinidin‐3‐malonylglucoside and cyanidin‐3‐malonylglucoside, followed by delphinidin‐3‐glucoside and cyanidin‐3‐glucoside. The caryopsis retains the anthocyanins in long‐term storage. The TAC values of the crops over the last 10 years were definable retroactively. The relative abundance of the main anthocyanin components in grains of different harvest years (2000 and 2010) was similar. Statistical analysis revealed a relatively strong negative correlation (r = –0.7439, P < 0.05) between two variables: TAC and rainfall during the grain‐ripening period.
First Report of Anthracnose Stalk Rot of Maize Caused by Colletotrichum graminicola in Switzerland
Authors: Sukno S. A. , Sanz-Martín J. M. , González-Fuente M. , Hiltbrunner J. , Thon M. R. 
Published: October 2013

Maize stem samples exhibiting symptoms of anthracnose were collected from a field near Zurich, Switzerland, in September of 2012 and were sent to the fungal genetics laboratory, Centro Hispano-Luso de Investigaciones Agrarias (CIALE) at the University of Salamanca, Spain, for further analysis. The stem samples exhibited glossy, black, and irregularly shaped lesions. Tissue samples, approximately 5 mm2, were dissected from below the epidermis. The tissue samples were surface disinfested for 1 min in 20% sodium hypochlorite and cultured on one half strength acidified PDA supplemented with ampicillin (2). Monoconidial isolates from three different stems were grown on potato dextrose agar (PDA) and had dark gray aerial mycelium with orange spore masses. Conidia were falcate, slightly curved, tapered toward the tips with an average length of 31.77 μm and an average width of 4.76 μm and produced in acervuli with setae, consistent with descriptions of C. graminicola Ces. Wils. Conidial suspensions were prepared for each isolate, and were inoculated onto the leaves of 2-week-old maize plants by laying the plants horizontally in a tray (in pots with their root systems intact) and placing 7.5-μl droplets of a 106 conidial suspension on the leaf surface. The trays were covered and plants were incubated overnight at 23°C. The plants were then returned to their upright position and grown in a growth chamber at 25°C with a 12-h light cycle (3). After 6 days, the inoculated plant leaves exhibited lesions that were elongated and irregularly shaped with necrotic centers and chlorotic margins. The water-inoculated controls did not show symptoms. Microscopic examination revealed the production of conidia on the surface of the leaves, identical to the original isolates. Genomic DNA was extracted using the protocol of Baek and Kenerley (1). A region of the ribosomal DNA repeat was amplified and sequenced using the universal primers ITS4 and ITS5. The resulting sequences were 100% identical to each other and 100% identical to C. graminicola sequences in GenBank. One representative sequence was deposited in GenBank under accession no. KF597538. The 100 most similar sequences in GenBank were used to construct a phylogenetic tree using the neighbor-joining method. The phylogenetic analysis revealed that the isolates clustered within the C. graminicola clade, consistent with their identification as C. graminicola. To our knowledge, this is the first report of anthracnose on maize caused by C. graminicola in Switzerland. Previous reports have demonstrated that the pathogen exists in neighboring countries Germany and France. References: (1) J.-M. Baek and C. M. Kenerley. Fungal Genet. Biol. 23:34, 1998. (2) S. A. Sukno et al. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 74:823, 2008. (3) W. A. Vargas et al. Plant Physiol. 158:1342, 2012.