bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Latitudinal shifts in species interactions interfere with resistance of southern but not of northern bog‐plant communities to experimental climate change
Authors: Schwarzer Christian , Heinken Thilo , Luthardt Vera , Joshi Jasmin 
Published: August 2013

SummaryThe persistence of species under changed climatic conditions depends on adaptations and plastic responses to these conditions and on interactions with their local plant community resulting in direct and indirect effects of changed climatic conditions. Populations at species' range margins may be especially crucial in containing a gene pool comprising adaptations to extreme climatic conditions. Many species of northernEuropean bog ecosystems reach their southern lowland range limit in centralEurope.In a common‐garden experiment, we experimentally assessed the impact of projected climatic changes on five bog‐plant species (including peat mossSphagnum magellanicum) sampled along a latitudinal gradient of 1400 km fromScandinavia to the marginal lowland populations inGermany.Populations were cultivated in monocultures and in experimental communities composed of all five species from their local community, and exposed to five combinations of three climate treatments (warming, fluctuating water‐tables, fertilization) in a southern common garden.Whereas most monocultures showed a decreasing biomass production from southern to northern origins under southern environmental conditions, in the experimental mixed‐species communities, an increasing biomass production towards northern communities was observed together with a shift in interspecific interactions along the latitudinal gradient. While negative dominance effects prevailed in southern communities, higher net biodiversity effects were observed in northern subarctic communities.The combined effects of climate treatments increased biomass production in monocultures of most origins. In communities, however, overall the treatments did not result in significantly changed biomass production.Among individual treatments, water‐table fluctuations caused a significant decrease in biomass production, but only in southern communities, indicating higher vulnerability to changed climatic conditions. Here, negative effects of climate treatments on graminoids were not compensated by the slightly increased growth of peat moss that benefited from interspecific interactions only in northern communities.Synthesis. We conclude that shifting interactions within multispecies communities caused pronounced responses to changed climatic conditions in wetland communities of temperate southern marginal, but not of northern subarctic origin. Therefore, future models investigating the impacts of climate change on plant communities should consider geographical variation in species interactions an important factor influencing community responses to changed climatic conditions.
Fructose, pregnancy and later life impacts
Authors: Regnault Timothy RH , Gentili Sheridan , Sarr Ousseynou , Toop Carla R , Sloboda Deborah M 
Published: August 2013

Summary

Fructose is an increasingly common constituent of the Westernized diet due to cost and production efficiencies. Although an integral component of our pre‐industrial revolution diet, over the past two decades human and animal studies have highlighted that excessive fructose intake appears to be associated with adverse metabolic effects.

Excessive intake of fructose is the combined result of increased total energy consumption and increased portion sizes of foods, which often incorporate the fructose‐containing sugars sucrose and high‐fructose corn‐syrup (HFCS). The adverse metabolic effects following excessive fructose consumption have become a hot topic in mainstream media and there is now rigorous scientific debate regarding periods of exposure, dosage levels, interactive effects with other sugars and fats and mechanisms underlying the actions of fructose.

There is still a degree of controversy regarding the extent to which sugars such as sucrose and HFCS have contributed to the current epidemic of obesity and diabetes. Furthermore, an increasing number of infants are being exposed to sugar‐sweetened food and beverages before birth and during early postnatal life, highlighting the importance of determining the long‐term effects of this perinatal exposure on the developing offspring.

There are limited human observational and controlled studies identifying associations of excessive sweetened food and beverage consumption with poor pregnancy outcomes. Animal research has demonstrated an increased incidence of gestational diabetes as well as altered maternal, fetal and offspring metabolic function, although the long‐term effects and the mechanism underlying these perturbations are ill defined.

This review aims to understand the role of early life fructose exposure in modifying postnatal risk of disease in the offspring, focusing on fructose intake during pregnancy and in early postnatal life.
Kidney regeneration by non‐platelet RNA‐containing particle‐derived cells
Authors: Kong Wuyi , Nuo Mu , Zhu Xiao Ping , Han Xiu Juan , Wang Xian 
Published: August 2013

Summary

We found a group of non‐platelet RNA‐containing particles (NPRCPs) in human umbilical cord blood. These particles can aggregate, fuse and become non‐nucleated cells when cocultured with nucleated cells in vitro. The non‐nucleated cells further differentiate into nucleated cells expressing octamer binding transcription factor 4 (OCT4). The NPRCPs are approximately 1–5 μm in diameter, have a thin bilayer membrane, contain short RNAs and microRNAs and express OCT4, sex‐determining region Y 2 (SOX2) and DEAD box polypeptide 4 (DDX4). To confirm the function of NPRCPs in vivo, we examined the effects of tail vein‐injected green fluorescent protein (GFP)‐labelled NPRCPs on mouse kidneys damaged by prior ischaemia and reperfusion from Day 1 to Week 6.

Within 1 day of injection of NPRCPs, immunofluorescence and immunohistochemistry revealed a large number of extravasated NPRCPs in the renal calyces, damaged glomeruli and duct tubules. During the course of regeneration, NPRCPs fused into large, non‐nucleated cellular structures that further became large nucleated cells to regenerate multicellular kidney tubules. In addition, many NPRCPs became tiny nucleated cellular structures that further differentiated into interstitial cells in connective tissue. The extravasated NPRCPs also arranged themselves into non‐cell glomerular structures before further regenerating into nucleated cells of the glomerulus.

In conclusion, the results demonstrate that, via different patterns of differentiation, NPRCP‐derived cells can regenerate mouse kidney tissue damaged by ischaemia.
UK survey of clinical consistency in tracheostomy management
Authors: McGowan Susan L. , Ward Elizabeth C. , Wall Laurelie R. , Shellshear Leanne R. , Spurgin Ann‐Louise 
Published: August 2013

AbstractBackgroundMany speech and language therapists (SLTs) work with patients who have a tracheostomy. There is limited information about their working practices and the extent to which recent publications and research have influenced the speech and language therapy management of the tracheostomized patient.AimsThis study reviews the current patterns of clinical practice for SLTs in the management of adult tracheostomized patients in the UK.Methods & ProceduresAn online questionnaire was completed by 106 SLTs with prior experience in tracheostomy management. The information from this was explored to determine patterns of practice across various areas of speech and language therapy tracheostomy management including clinical roles and responsibilities, management of communication disorders, and assessment and management of dysphagia and decannulation. These clinical patterns were then examined with respect to the current literature, emerging patterns in evidence‐based practice and national practice guidelines.Outcomes & ResultsThe results indicate a moderate to high level of clinical consistency in the majority of areas evaluated across the scope of tracheostomy management in speech and language therapy. Consistency in practice areas such as increased utilization of instrumental assessments and conservative use of the Modified Evans Blue Dye Test indicate clinical application in line with current research. Limited clinical consensus or inconsistencies in evidence‐based services were identified in aspects of practice that are supported by conflicting or emerging research evidence. Such areas include involvement in cuff deflation regimes, adoption of specific decannulation procedures and participation in multidisciplinary team management.Conclusions & ImplicationsSLTs in the UK provide a moderate to high level of consistent practice in tracheostomy management. This study identifies areas of tracheostomy management that require further research in order to establish clinical practice guidelines and to address discrepancies between research evidence and clinical implementation.
Dialectics of gender and health: the case of HIV serodiscordance
Authors: Wyrod Robert 
Published: August 2013

AbstractThe relationship between gender and health is a deeply interdependent one. Yet research in this area has focused primarily on how gender relations determine health behaviour and health outcomes. This article advocates a more holistic approach that conceptualises gender and health as fully intertwined and mutually constitutive. This interplay is explored through the case of HIV serodiscordance in which one person in a relationship is HIV positive and the other HIV negative. Drawing on in‐depth research with discordant couples in urban Uganda, this study indicates that living with discordance can both reinforce and challenge normative gender power dynamics in relationships. This study, therefore, illustrates how significant health problems can influence gender relations. As such, it reveals the dialectical relationship between gender and health and also provides important insights for HIV prevention in the new era of antiretroviral treatment as prevention.
Maternal exposure to heatwave and preterm birth inBrisbane,Australia
Authors: Wang J , Williams G , Guo Y , Pan X , Tong S 
Published: August 2013

ObjectiveTo quantify the short‐term effects of maternal exposure to heatwave on preterm birth.DesignAn ecological study.SettingA population‐based study inBrisbane,Australia.PopulationAll pregnant women who had a spontaneous singleton live birth inBrisbane betweenNovember andMarch in 2000–2010 were studied.MethodsDaily data on pregnancy outcomes, meteorological factors, and ambient air pollutants were obtained. TheCox proportional hazards regression model with time‐dependent variables was used to examine the short‐term impact of heatwave on preterm birth. A series of cut‐off temperatures and durations were used to define heatwave. Multivariable analyses were also performed to adjust for socio‐economic factors, demographic factors, meteorological factors, and ambient air pollutants.Main outcome measureSpontaneous preterm births.ResultsThe adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) ranged from 1.13 (95%CI1.03–1.24) to 2.00 (95%CI1.37–2.91) by using different heatwave definitions, after controlling for demographic, socio‐economic, and meteorological factors, and air pollutants.ConclusionsHeatwave was significantly associated with preterm birth: the associations were robust to the definitions of heatwave. The threshold temperatures, instead of duration, could be more likely to influence the evaluation of birth‐related heatwaves. The findings of this study may have significant public health implications as climate change progresses.
Intraoperative underwater colonoscopy with a laparoscope following in‐sleeve on‐table colonic irrigation in obstructed left colon
Authors: Büyükgebiz Oğuzhan 
Published: August 2013

AimThe aim of the present study was to describe intraoperative underwater colonoscopy (IUC) and recommend the use of this new technique in emergency settings for the management of acute left‐sided colonic obstruction.Patients and MethodsIUC was performed with a laparoscope attached to a video‐camera system after in‐sleeve, on‐table colonic irrigation. The colon was transected proximally to the tumour, and a nylon camera drape was sutured tightly to the proximal colonic end. Following colonic irrigation, the washout was stopped, and IUC was accomplished by introducing a laparoscope into the bowel. Finally, the laparoscope was withdrawn and formal surgery was performed.ResultsIUC was successfully used in nine patients who underwent emergency colon surgery; eight patients had colonic obstructions due to adenocarcinomas, and one patient had colonic perforation. IUC revealed three synchronous lesions in the obstructed colonic segments which one of them was an adenocarcinoma in three patients. Another patient had a polyp located distally to the tumour, which was determined preoperatively. Primary resection and stapling anastomosis were performed in all cases. Postoperative complications were atelectasis and delay of intestinal motility in two patients; both recovered well. There was no complication due to IUC or primary operation; for example, anastomotic leakage or wound infection. During the follow up, one patient died 10 months after primary operation due to a cardiac event.ConclusionIUC following in‐sleeve, on‐table irrigation is safe and quick to perform, and enables the assessment of colonic mucosa with good visibility. This method was found to be helpful to perform intraoperative colonoscopy when indicated in the emergency surgery of the obstructed left‐sided colon when conventional endoscopy was not available at the theatre.
Elucidation of the genetic differences in Trialeurodes vaporariorum populations under vegetable greenhouse conditions by using the allozyme approach
Authors: Shin Dongyoung , Mo Hyoung‐ho , Lee Sung‐Eun , Park Jung‐Joon , Cho Kijong 
Published: August 2013

AbstractGenetic differentiation of Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Westwood 1856) populations was examined using biochemical and allozyme analysis. For biochemical analysis, general esterase and glutathion‐S‐transferase were tested. Allozyme genetic variability in 11 populations of T. vaporariorum was investigated using five loci from four enzyme systems. Although there are large variations between populations, T. vaporariorum is grouped into two populations with geographic barriers, based on Nei's genetic distance in the Baekdudaegan Mountains. Within these two groups, low migration and linkage disequilibrium reveal that populations tend to be influenced by gene drift rather than uniform selection pressures. The effect of genetic drift is greater than the effect of uniform selection by insecticides or host plant resistance, which is suggested by the FST estimates in this study. Based on this basic research, more effective whitefly control programs could be built in the future.
Enhanced understanding of predator–prey relationships using molecular methods to identify predator species, individual and sex
Authors: Mumma Matthew A. , Soulliere Colleen E. , Mahoney Shane P. , Waits Lisette P. 
Published: August 2013

AbstractPredator species identification is an important step in understanding predator‐prey interactions, but predator identifications using kill site observations are often unreliable. We used molecular tools to analyse predator saliva, scat and hair from caribou calf kills in Newfoundland, Canada to identify the predator species, individual and sex. We sampledDNAfrom 32 carcasses using cotton swabs to collect predator saliva. We used fragment length analysis and sequencing of mitochondrialDNAto distinguish between coyote, black bear, Canada lynx and red fox and used nuclearDNAmicrosatellite analysis to identify individuals. We compared predator species detected using molecular tools to those assigned via field observations at each kill. We identified a predator species at 94% of carcasses using molecular methods, while observational methods assigned a predator species to 62.5% of kills. Molecular methods attributed 66.7% of kills to coyote and 33.3% to black bear, while observations assigned 40%, 45%, 10% and 5% to coyote, bear, lynx and fox, respectively. Individual identification was successful at 70% of kills where a predator species was identified. Only one individual was identified at each kill, but some individuals were found at multiple kills. Predator sex was predominantly male. We demonstrate the first large‐scale evaluation of predator species, individual and sex identification using molecular techniques to extractDNAfrom swabs of wild prey carcasses. Our results indicate that kill site swabs (i) can be highly successful in identifying the predator species and individual responsible; and (ii) serve to inform and complement traditional methods.
Modular tagging of amplicons using a single PCR for high‐throughput sequencing
Authors: Clarke Laurence J. , Czechowski Paul , Soubrier Julien , Stevens Mark I. , Cooper Alan 
Published: August 2013

AbstractHigh‐throughput sequencing (HTS) of PCR amplicons is becoming the method of choice to sequence one or several targeted loci for phylogenetic and DNA barcoding studies. Although the development of HTS has allowed rapid generation of massive amounts of DNA sequence data, preparing amplicons for HTS remains a rate‐limiting step. For example, HTS platforms require platform‐specific adapter sequences to be present at the 5′ and 3′ end of the DNA fragment to be sequenced. In addition, short multiplex identifier (MID) tags are typically added to allow multiple samples to be pooled in a single HTS run. Existing methods to incorporate HTS adapters and MID tags into PCR amplicons are either inefficient, requiring multiple enzymatic reactions and clean‐up steps, or costly when applied to multiple samples or loci (fusion primers). We describe a method to amplify a target locus and add HTS adapters and MID tags via a linker sequence using a single PCR. We demonstrate our approach by generating reference sequence data for two mitochondrial loci (COI and 16S) for a diverse suite of insect taxa. Our approach provides a flexible, cost‐effective and efficient method to prepare amplicons for HTS.
Transcriptome resources for the frogs Lithobates clamitans and Pseudacris regilla, emphasizing antimicrobial peptides and conserved loci for phylogenetics
Authors: Robertson Laura S. , Cornman Robert S. 
Published: August 2013

AbstractWe developed genetic resources for two North American frogs, Lithobates clamitans and Pseudacris regilla, widespread native amphibians that are potential indicator species of environmental health. For both species, mRNA from multiple tissues was sequenced using 454 technology. De novo assemblies with Mira3 resulted in 50 238 contigs (N50 = 687 bp) and 48 213 contigs (N50 = 686 bp) for L. clamitans and P. regilla, respectively, after clustering with CD‐Hit‐EST and purging contigs below 200 bp. We performed BLASTX similarity searches against the Xenopus tropicalis proteome and, for predicted ORFs, HMMER similarity searches against the Pfam‐A database. Because there is broad interest in amphibian immune factors, we manually annotated putative antimicrobial peptides. To identify conserved regions suitable for amplicon resequencing across a broad taxonomic range, we performed an additional assembly of public short‐read transcriptome data derived from two species of the genus Rana and identified reciprocal best TBLASTX matches among all assemblies. Although P. regilla, a hylid frog, is substantially more diverged from the ranid species, we identified 56 genes that were sufficiently conserved to allow nondegenerate primer design with Primer3. In addition to providing a foundation for comparative genomics and quantitative gene expression analysis, our results enable quick development of nuclear sequence‐based markers for phylogenetics or population genetics.
Entropy and the species accumulation curve: a novel entropy estimator via discovery rates of new species
Authors: Chao Anne , Wang Y. T. , Jost Lou 
Published: August 2013

Summary

Estimating Shannon entropy and its exponential from incomplete samples is a central objective of many research fields. However, empirical estimates of Shannon entropy and its exponential depend strongly on sample size and typically exhibit substantial bias. This work uses a novel method to obtain an accurate, low‐bias analytic estimator of entropy, based on species frequency counts. Our estimator does not require prior knowledge of the number of species.

We show that there is a close relationship between Shannon entropy and the species accumulation curve, which depicts the cumulative number of observed species as a function of sample size. We reformulate entropy in terms of the expected discovery rates of new species with respect to sample size, that is, the successive slopes of the species accumulation curve. Our estimator is obtained by applying slope estimators derived from an improved Good‐Turing frequency formula. Our method is also applied to estimate mutual information.

Extensive simulations from theoretical models and real surveys show that if sample size is not unreasonably small, the resulting entropy estimator is nearly unbiased. Our estimator generally outperforms previous methods in terms of bias and accuracy (low mean squared error) especially when species richness is large and there is a large fraction of undetected species in samples.

We discuss the extension of our approach to estimate Shannon entropy for multiple incidence data. The use of our estimator in constructing an integrated rarefaction and extrapolation curve of entropy (or mutual information) as a function of sample size or sample coverage (an aspect of sample completeness) is also discussed.
Val66Met polymorphism and serum brain‐derived neurotrophic factor in bipolar disorder: an open‐label trial
Authors: Grande I. , Magalhães P. V. S. , Chendo I. , Stertz L. , Fries G. R. , Cereser K. M. , Cunha Â. B. M. , Gói P. , Kunz M. , Udina M. , Martín‐Santos R. , Frey B. N. , Vieta E. , Kapczinski F. 
Published: August 2013

ObjectiveBrain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is consistently associated with acute mood episodes in bipolar disorder, but there is a lack of longitudinal data to support this hypothesis. In this 16‐week open‐label clinical trial, we tested the predictive role of BDNF Val66Met polymorphism on serum BDNF levels and the relationship of serum BDNF and clinical response in people with bipolar disorder during an acute illness episode.MethodSixty‐four people with bipolar disorder who were medication‐free at baseline and in an acute mood episode were recruited. They were matched with 64 healthy controls. Clinical evaluation, serum BDNF, and BDNF Val66Met polymorphism were determined at baseline, and change in serum BDNF was assessed in patients at weeks 2, 4, 8 and 16.ResultsThere were no differences between patients and controls in serum BDNF or in frequencies of the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism genotype at baseline. The multivariable model showed that Met carriers had a significantly different change in BDNF levels compared with Val homozygotes. Not achieving a complete remission was also associated with lower prospectively assessed BDNF levels.ConclusionThis study provides the first longitudinal evidence that both the BDNF Val66Met polymorphism and remission status predict change in circulating BDNF levels.