bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Systemic Infection of Avocado, Persea americana, by Raffaelea lauricola, Does Not Progress Into Fruit Pulp or Seed
Authors: Ploetz Randy C. , Inch Sharon A. , Perez Martinez Jose M. , White Thomas L. 
Published: July 2012

AbstractAvocado, Persea americana, is an important fruit crop in the tropics and warm subtropics. Laurel wilt, caused by Raffaelea lauricola, is a systemic vascular wilt of avocado that spread recently to Florida, an important producing state in the USA. As fruit and seed of avocado produced in Florida are sold in other states and countries where this crop is produced, there is concern that commerce in these commodities might spread this disease. Potted, fruit‐bearing trees were artificially inoculated with R. lauricola, and plants were systemically colonized by the fungus. In no instance did infection progress further than the hilum (87 total fruit), as determined by re‐isolation of R. lauricola on a semi‐selective medium or its detection, with qPCR and high fidelity PCR, of diagnostic small subunit (SSU) 18s rDNA. Thus, it would apparently be safe to propagate avocado with seed from trees affected by this disease. Pedicels/peduncles and hila associated with these fruit were colonized by the pathogen. The latter tissues would be associated with/attached to marketed fruit, but they do not harbour the pathogen’s ambrosia beetle vector, Xyleborus glabratus. Thus, commerce in avocado fruit appears to be a negligible risk for expanding the geographic range of laurel wilt.
First Report of Sclerotinia nivalis Causing White Mold Disease on Sedum sarmentosum in China
Authors: Fan Xuan , Zhang Jing , Yang Long , Zhang Qinghua , Li Guoqing 
Published: July 2012

AbstractIn 2010 and 2011, a disease exhibiting characteristics of white mold was found on Sedum sarmentosum, a crassulaceous weed under canopies of tea trees, in Zhushan County, Hubei Province, China. Based on the cultural and morphological characteristics, the pathogen was identified as Sclerotinia nivalis Saito. In the phylogenetic tree inferred from the internal transcribed spacer (ITS)‐rDNA sequences, the pathogen was clustered with five previously characterized isolates of S. nivalis, forming a unique clade, thus confirming the morpho‐cultural identification. Koch’s postulates were fulfilled by pathogenicity tests using the isolate SsSn‐24 and Let‐19 of S. nivalis on plants of S. sarmentosum. To our knowledge, this is the first report of S. nivalis on S. sarmentosum in the family Crassulaceae.
Variability of Indian Isolates of Tilletia indica Assessed by Pathogenicity and Molecular Markers
Authors: Thirumalaisamy Polavakkalipalayam Palanisamy , Singh Dharam Vir 
Published: July 2012

AbstractTwenty isolates of Tilletia indica collected from sites in North and North‐western India showed pathogenic variation on 18 host differentials. Sixteen aggressive pathotypes were identified on the basis of percent coefficient of infection (PCI). Two major clusters were apparent in the dendrogram; cluster 1 comprised 13 isolates and cluster two consisted of seven isolates. One of the isolate Kashipur had a high PCI on most of the host differentials compared to other isolates. Polymerase chain reaction‐based random amplified polymorphic DNA (PCR – RAPD) analysis also divided isolates into two major clusters, one comprising of 5 isolates collected from hill and foot‐hill sites and another group comprising of 15 isolates collected from plain sites. Thus, the clusters identified based on PCI did not match closely with those identified by molecular analysis based on RAPD. Although diversity among the isolates of T. indica was absent in the rDNA‐ITS region, our study based on pathogenicity and molecular markers confirms the existence of great diversity in the pathogen, also shifting of ‘hot spot’ areas from one place to another within Karnal bunt prevailing areas.
Cross‐Species Alleviation of Biotic and Abiotic Stresses by the Endophyte Pseudomonas aeruginosa PW09
Authors: Pandey Pramod Kumar , Yadav Sudheer Kumar , Singh Akanksha , Sarma Birinchi Kumar , Mishra Aradhana , Singh Harikesh Bahadur 
Published: July 2012

AbstractA wheat endophytic bacterium (Pseudomonas aeruginosa PW09) was evaluated for its ability to trigger an induced systemic resistance response in cucumber against biotic and abiotic stresses. PW09 was applied to cucumber seeds, and the seedlings were subjected to Sclerotium rolfsii infection and NaCl (150 mm). The role of PW09 was evaluated in alleviating the stresses by assessing plant mortality due to S. rolfsii infection and biomass accumulation under NaCl stress as well as at the physiological level through phenylpropanoid metabolism, antioxidant activities and proline accumulation. The endophyte reduced seedling mortality by 60% and increased biomass accumulation significantly under S. rolfsii (7%) and NaCl (18%) stresses, respectively, compared with endophyte‐untreated seedlings. Application of PW09 also induced higher accumulation of proline (1.3‐ and 1.4‐fold) and total phenolics (1.2‐ and 1.1‐fold) and activities of polyphenol oxidase (4.3‐ and 1.5‐fold), phenylalanine ammonia lyase (1.29‐ and 1.27‐fold) and superoxide dismutase (2.5‐ and 1.39‐fold) under S. rolfsii and NaCl stresses, indicating the ability of the wheat endophyte PW09 in alleviating both biotic and abiotic stresses in cucumber.
Ultrastructural and Enzymatic Activity of Membranous Vesicles Isolated from Canine Seminal Plasma
Authors: Zelli R , Bellezza I , Rambotti MG , Minelli A , Polisca A 
Published: July 2012

ContentsThe objectives of this study were to verify the presence of membranous vesicles (MV) in canine seminal plasma by mean of transmission electron microscopy (TEM), to describe the ultrastructural characteristics and to identify some enzymatic activity associated with them. Semen samples, collected by digital manipulation from dogs with proven fertility, were pooled and used for membrane vesicles preparation according to conventional procedures. TEM observations showed the existence of vesicular membranous structures of more or less spherical shape with different sizes. These vesicles were surrounded by a single‐, double‐ or multiple‐layered laminar membranes. The mean vesicle diameter was 117.6 ± 86.9 nm ranging from 24.4 to 716.6 nm. Enzyme activity determinations showed the presence of adenosine deaminase, 5′‐nucleotidase, ADPase, ATPase, dipeptilpeptidase IV, alkaline phosphatase, total acid phosphatase and prostatic acid phosphatase, while the aminopeptidase activity was absent. In conclusion, results of this study, compatible with results from other mammals, showed for the first time the presence of MV, their ultrastructural and enzymatic characteristics in dog seminal plasma.
Obesity does not affect sodium picosulphate bowel preparation
Authors: Fok K. C. , Turner I. B. , Teoh W. C. , Levy R. L. 
Published: July 2012

AbstractBackgroundA previous study utilising oral polyethylene‐glycol by Borg et al. concluded that obesity is an independent predictor of inadequate bowel preparation at colonoscopy.AimTo compare bowel preparation quality between obese and non‐obese individuals as assessed by Boston bowel preparation scale (BBPS) after using sodium picosulphate.MethodsProspective recruitment of patients at a day surgical unit in a New South Wales academic hospital. Bowel preparation was with Picoprep in all patients. Body Mass Index and epidemiological details were collected. Bowel preparation efficacy was assessed using the Boston Bowel Preparation Score.ResultsOne hundred and four patients were enrolled prospectively. Five (4.8%) were excluded owing to poor mental capacity. Sixty‐three (64%) were non‐obese, and 36 (36%) were obese. Fifty‐seven (90%) non‐obese and 32 (89%) obese patients had good bowel preparation. There was no statistical difference for sodium picosulphate bowel preparation between obese and non‐obese individuals (P > 0.99) using Fisher's exact probability tests. The BBPS score in the left colon predicted the overall BBPS score in all patients (P < 0.001). Three of 99 patients (3%) did not tolerate sodium picosulphate, with nausea being the most common side‐effect.LimitationsNon‐randomised studyConclusionsThere was no difference in bowel preparation quality between obese and non‐obese patients using a low‐volume bowel preparation (sodium picosulphate) and without dose modification of the bowel preparation. Sodium picosulphate was a welltolerated and an effective bowel preparation for obese individuals. With an increasing incidence of obesity and expanding colonoscopic indications within Australia and other Western countries from government‐sponsored programs, it is paramount that procedural quality not be compromised in the obese patient.
Consistent sequential activity across diverse forms of UP states under ketamine anesthesia
Authors: Luczak Artur , Barthó Peter 
Published: July 2012

AbstractDuring slow‐wave sleep, the neocortex shows complex, self‐organized spontaneous activity. Similar slow‐wave oscillations are present under anesthesia where massive, persistent network activity (UP states) alternates with periods of generalized neural silence (DOWN states). To investigate the neuronal activity patterns occurring during UP states, we recorded simultaneously from populations of cells in neocortical layer V of ketamine/xylazine‐anesthetized rats. UP states formed a diverse class. In particular, simultaneous‐onset UP states were typically accompanied by sharp field potentials and 10–14 Hz modulation, and were often grouped in a 3 Hz (‘delta’) pattern. Longer, slow‐onset UP states did not exhibit 10–14 Hz modulation, and showed a slow propagation across recording electrodes (‘traveling waves’). Despite this diversity, the temporal patterns of spiking activity were similar across different UP state types. Analysis of cross‐correlograms revealed conserved temporal relationships among neurons, with each neuron having specific timing during UP states. As a group, putative interneurons were most active at the beginning of UP states and putative pyramidal cells were active uniformly throughout the duration of UP states. These results show that UP states under ketamine anesthesia have a stable, fine‐structured firing pattern despite a large variability in global structure.
Impact of contextual cues in the expression of the memory associated with diazepam withdrawal: involvement of hippocampal PKMζin vivo, and Arc expression and LTP in vitro
Authors: Monti Maria C. , Gabach Laura A. , Perez Mariela F. , Ramírez Oscar A. 
Published: July 2012

AbstractHippocampal synaptic plasticity has been related to learning and adaptive processes developed during chronic drug administration, suggesting the existence of a common neurobiological mechanism mediating drug addiction and memory. Moreover, protein kinase M zeta (PKMζ) is critical for the maintenance of hippocampal long‐term potentiation (LTP) and spatial conditioned long‐term memories. Also, a link between activity‐regulated cytoskeleton‐associated protein (Arc), PKMζ and LTP has been proposed. Our previous results demonstrated that re‐exposure to the withdrawal environment was able to evoke the memory acquired when the anxiety measured as a diazepam (DZ) withdrawal sign was experienced. In the present work we evaluated if the memory associated with DZ withdrawal could be affected by changes in the contextual cues presented during withdrawal and by intrahippocampal administration of a PKMζ inhibitor. We found that the context was relevant for the expression of withdrawal signs as changes in contextual cues prevented the expression of the anxiety‐like behavior observed during plus‐maze (PM) re‐exposure, the associated enhanced synaptic plasticity and the increase in Arc expression. Furthermore, intrahippocampal administration of PKMζ inhibitor previous to re‐exposure to the PM test also impaired expression of anxiety‐like behavior and the facilitated LTP. These results support the relevance of the hippocampal synaptic plasticity in the maintenance of the memory trace during benzodiazepines withdrawal, adding new evidences for common mechanisms between memory and drug addiction that can be intervened for treatment or prevention of this pathology.
Polynomial Optics: A Construction Kit for Efficient Ray‐Tracing of Lens Systems
Authors: Hullin Matthias B. , Hanika Johannes , Heidrich Wolfgang 
Published: July 2012

AbstractSimulation of light transport through lens systems plays an important role in graphics. While basic imaging properties can be conveniently derived from linear models (like ABCD matrices), these approximations fail to describe nonlinear effects and aberrations that arise in real optics. Such effects can be computed by proper ray tracing, for which, however, finding suitable sampling and filtering strategies is often not a trivial task. Inspired by aberration theory, which describes the deviation from the linear ray transfer in terms of wavefront distortions, we propose a ray‐space formulation for nonlinear effects. In particular, we approximate the analytical solution to the ray tracing problem by means of a Taylor expansion in the ray parameters. This representation enables a construction‐kit approach to complex optical systems in the spirit of matrix optics. It is also very simple to evaluate, which allows for efficient execution on CPU and GPU alike, including the computation of mixed derivatives of any order. We evaluate fidelity and performance of our polynomial model, and show applications in high‐quality offline rendering and at interactive frame rates.
Tessellation‐Independent Smooth Shadow Boundaries
Authors: Mattausch Oliver , Scherzer Daniel , Wimmer Michael , Igarashi Takeo 
Published: July 2012

AbstractWe propose an efficient and light‐weight solution for rendering smooth shadow boundaries that do not reveal the tessellation of the shadow‐casting geometry. Our algorithm reconstructs the smooth contours of the underlying mesh and then extrudes shadow volumes from the smooth silhouettes to render the shadows. For this purpose we propose an improved silhouette reconstruction using the vertex normals of the underlying smooth mesh. Then our method subdivides the silhouette loops until the contours are sufficiently smooth and project to smooth shadow boundaries. This approach decouples the shadow smoothness from the tessellation of the geometry and can be used to maintain equally high shadow quality for multiple LOD levels. It causes only a minimal change to the fill rate, which is the well‐known bottleneck of shadow volumes, and hence has only small overhead.
Fast Generation of Approximate Blue Noise Point Sets
Authors: Kalantari Nima Khademi , Sen Pradeep 
Published: July 2012

AbstractPoisson‐disk sampling is a popular sampling method because of its blue noise power spectrum, but generation of these samples is computationally very expensive. In this paper, we propose an efficient method for fast generation of a large number of blue noise samples using a small initial patch of Poisson‐disk samples that can be generated with any existing approach. Our main idea is to convolve this set of samples with another to generate our final set of samples. We use the convolution theorem from signal processing to show that the spectrum of the resulting sample set preserves the blue noise properties. Since our method is approximate, we have error with respect to the true Poisson‐disk samples, but we show both mathematically and practically that this error is only a function of the number of samples in the small initial patch and is therefore bounded. Our method is parallelizable and we demonstrate an implementation of it on a GPU, running more than 10 times faster than any previous method and generating more than 49 million 2D samples per second. We can also use the proposed approach to generate multidimensional blue noise samples.
Example‐Based Fractured Appearance
Authors: Glondu L. , Muguercia L. , Marchal M. , Bosch C. , Rushmeier H. , Dumont G. , Drettakis G. 
Published: July 2012

AbstractA common weathering effect is the appearance of cracks due to material fractures. Previous exemplar‐based aging and weathering methods have either reused images or sought to replicate observed patterns exactly. We introduce a new approach to exemplar‐based modeling that creates weathered patterns on synthetic objects by matching the statistics of fracture patterns in a photograph. We present a user study to determine which statistics are correlated to visual similarity and how they are perceived by the user. We then describe a revised physically‐based fracture model capable of producing a wide range of crack patterns at interactive rates. We demonstrate how a Bayesian optimization method can determine the parameters of this model so it can produce a pattern with the same key statistics as an exemplar. Finally, we present results using our approach and various exemplars to produce a variety of fracture effects in synthetic renderings of complex environments. The speed of the fracture simulation allows interactive previews of the fractured results and its application on large scale environments.
Student Learning Outcomes for Biblical Studies in the Liberal Arts
Authors: Webster Jane S. , Runions Erin , Gallagher Eugene V. , Lopez Davina C. , McGinn Sheila E. , Penner Todd C. , Howell David B. 
Published: July 2012

AbstractWhat is the role of biblical studies in a liberal arts curriculum? At the 2009 North American Society of Biblical Literature conference, a panel of seven Bible scholars provided brief analyses and arguments about the appropriate goals of teaching biblical studies in undergraduate contexts in this historical moment. They consider and critique the notion of specific Student Learning Outcomes or Objectives (SLOs) for courses about the Bible. In the process they address questions such as: what is the relative importance of “coverage” (biblical literacy, disciplinary knowledge and methods, and the historical creation of the biblical texts) versus modern and historical reception and uses of these texts? In their contributions, the authors analyze ways that a biblical studies course can develop the critical reading and writing skills that are the hallmark of undergraduate education. Some authors find these skills furthered by not bracketing from study the normative truth claims in the texts and instead strategically and critically encouraging the identity work and religious seeking associated with religious uses of these texts. Others call attention to the institutional and classroom power dynamics which inform and are constituted by the current student learning outcomes movement.
Child and adolescent predictors of male intimate partner violence
Authors: Theobald Delphine , Farrington David P. 
Published: July 2012

Background: This study addresses to what extent child and adolescent explanatory factors predict male perpetrated intimate partner violence (IPV) in adulthood.Methods: We use prospective longitudinal data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD). The CSDD is a survey of 411 male born in the 1950s in an inner London area. The men were interviewed over a period of 40 years with information also gathered from their parents, peers and teachers and later from their female partners.Results: Family factors such as having a criminal father, a disrupted family, poor supervision and relationship problems with parents predicted later IPV. Individual predictors included unpopularity, daring, impulsivity, aggressiveness and low verbal IQ. There was evidence of cumulative risk for later violence in intimate partnerships.Conclusions: Early childhood factors predict adult male IPV. No other study has showed the predictability of IPV over a 40‐year time interval in a prospective survey. The IPV men tended to have convictions for violence and tended to be unsuccessful in areas such as employment, drinking and drug use.
Comparative effect of lens care solutions on blink rate, ocular discomfort and visual performance
Authors: Yang Shun‐nan , Tai Yu‐chi , Sheedy James E , Kinoshita Beth , Lampa Matthew , Kern Jami R 
Published: July 2012

Citation information: Yang N, Tai C, Sheedy JE, Kinoshita B, Lampa M & Kern JR. Comparative effect of lens care solutions on blink rate, ocular discomfort and visual performance. Ophthalmic Physiol Opt 2012, 32, 412–420. doi: 10.1111/j.1475‐1313.2012.00922.xAbstractPurpose:  To help maintain clear vision and ocular surface health, eye blinks occur to distribute natural tears over the ocular surface, especially the corneal surface. Contact lens wearers may suffer from poor vision and dry eye symptoms due to difficulty in lens surface wetting and reduced tear production. Sustained viewing of a computer screen reduces eye blinks and exacerbates such difficulties. The present study evaluated the wetting effect of lens care solutions (LCSs) on blink rate, dry eye symptoms, and vision performance.Methods:  Sixty‐five adult habitual soft contact lens wearers were recruited to adapt to different LCSs (Opti‐free, ReNu, and ClearCare) in a cross‐over design. Blink rate in pictorial viewing and reading (measured with an eyetracker), dry eye symptoms (measured with the Ocular Surface Disease Index questionnaire), and visual discrimination (identifying tumbling E) immediately before and after eye blinks were measured after 2 weeks of adaption to LCS. Repeated measures anova and mixed model ancova were conducted to evaluate effects of LCS on blink rate, symptom score, and discrimination accuracy.Results:  Opti‐Free resulted in lower dry eye symptoms (p = 0.018) than ClearCare, and lower spontaneous blink rate (measured in picture viewing) than ClearCare (p = 0.014) and ReNu (p = 0.041). In reading, blink rate was higher for ClearCare compared to ReNu (p = 0.026) and control (p = 0.024). Visual discrimination time was longer for the control (daily disposable lens) than for Opti‐Free (p = 0.007), ReNu (p = 0.009), and ClearCare (0.013) immediately before the blink.Conclusions:  LCSs differently affected blink rate, subjective dry eye symptoms, and visual discrimination speed. Those with wetting agents led to significantly fewer eye blinks while affording better ocular comfort for contact lens wearers, compared to that without. LCSs with wetting agents also resulted in better visual performance compared to wearing daily disposable contact lenses. These presumably are because of improved tear film quality.