bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Testosterone membrane‐initiated action in breast cancer cells: Interaction with the androgen signaling pathway and EPOR
Authors: Pelekanou Vassiliki , Notas George , Sanidas Elias , Tsapis Andreas , Castanas Elias , Kampa Marilena 
Published: February 2010

AbstractMembrane‐initiated androgen actions have now been acknowledged, even though a specific binding site has not been biochemically characterized yet. Recent data indicate that testosterone–BSA, a non‐permeable testosterone analog, can exert specific actions in breast cancer cell lines, including proper transcriptional effects, independent of the intracellular androgen sites. In the present work we explore the effects of testosterone–BSA in two specifically modified pathways, revealed by early trascriptome analysis, namely the non‐genotropic androgen signaling and the HIF1α pathway. We provide evidence that p38 MAPK and PI3K/Akt/NFκB and/or Rho/Actin pathways are directly involved in testosterone‐induced apoptosis, while the JNK/c‐JUN pathway is involved in membrane site‐initiated transcription. Furthermore we show that membrane‐acting androgens modify the transcription of the erythropoietin receptor (EPOR), leading to erythropoietin‐initiated actions. Interestingly, association of recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO) together with testosterone–BSA protects cells from apoptosis, through discrete signaling events. The effect of testosterone–BSA is exerted through the classical erythropoietin promoter, while rHuEPO decreases the transcription of EPOR acting on a newly identified regulatory/promoter region, upstream of its known promoter. These results suggest a new interaction of membrane‐acting androgen with EPOR and should be taken into account in the pharmaceutical manipulations of breast cancer patients.
Endogenisation or enclave formation? The development of the Ethiopian cut flower industry
Authors: Melese Ayelech Tiruwha , (Bert) Helmsing A.H.J. 
Published: February 2010

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the evolution of the Ethiopian cut flower industry, illustrating how rapidly a potential comparative advantage can be realised. But the question is to what extent a country benefits from this in the long run, if foreign direct investment is the principal driving force. Will the new industry become an enclave, or will it be accompanied by a process of building local capabilities, a process which we denominate endogenisation? A value chain framework is used to analyse the industry and to develop a number of indicators on the development direction. The cut flower industry in Ethiopia is characterised by a dominant role of Dutch foreign investors, Dutch trade auctions which dominate the export trade, and the Dutch development cooperation which plays an important role in the development of the sector. This raises the question to what extent this triple role of the Dutch contributes to endogenisation or to enclave formation.We conclude that endogenisation is a two-way process. It depends both on the degree to which FDI has an interest to draw on domestic firms, enter into relationships and share technologies; and on the interest and ability of domestic firms to take up such opportunities, and on the creation of supporting institutions and infrastructures to make this take-up possible. The latter rests largely with government. Endogenisation is taking place to some extent and at a very incipient stage. Dutch FDI has little direct interest to share technologies, but there is joint collective action on non-core activities, notably transport, which constitutes the largest item in the total cost. Dutch cooperative flower auctions are an open and vital trade channel giving Ethiopian flower growers access to international markets. The Ethiopian government has promoted the industry, making available land and low cost finance; and with the assistance of Dutch bilateral cooperation it is creating trade standards and supporting knowledge institutions to train skilled staff. The main challenge is Ethiopian entrepreneurship: many are attracted by the high growth and profitability of the industry and can run a business in Ethiopia, but lack the technical competence to meet growing competition in the industry.
‘We are citizens too’: the politics of citizenship in independent Ghana
Authors: Kobo Ousman 
Published: February 2010

ABSTRACTThis paper examines Ghana's struggle to create a pluralistic nationality that guarantees universal rights to all citizens, including people of foreign origin. A major recipient of colonial labour migrants who considered themselves citizens of Ghana at the time of independence, Ghana provides an excellent case study for exploring the ambiguities and malleability of post-colonial citizenship. Analysing the various ways in which Ghanaian politicians have struggled to redefine the nationality status of descendants of migrants from other parts of West Africa since independence, I argue that the politicisation of Ghana's post-colonial citizenship stems not only from the country's colonial legacy, but also from struggles over diminishing economic resources between the late 1960s and early 1980s that led some indigenous Ghanaians to declare the non-autochthonous population as ‘aliens’ who should be excluded from the benefits of citizenship. Constitutional provisions that recognised citizenship by birth were contested by popular perceptions that only the autochthonous are ‘true’ citizens and are thus the only legitimate beneficiaries of political and economic rights.
The successful Ghana election of 2008: a convenient myth?
Authors: Jockers Heinz , Kohnert Dirk , Nugent Paul 
Published: February 2010

ABSTRACTGhana's 2008 election has been hailed by national and international observers as a model for Africa. The perception of success has prevailed despite persistent concerns about an inflated voters' register and electoral fraud perpetrated by the two major parties, the NPP and NDC, in their strongholds in the Ashanti and Volta Regions respectively. Electoral malpractice in Ghana's virtual two-party system could acquire a decisive importance as a ‘third force’, representing an even more important factor than the smaller opposition parties. Unfortunate diplomatic and technocratic biases in election monitoring, combined with a reluctance on the part of the responsible authorities to investigate what appears to be a long history of fraudulent voting, amounts to a dangerous time bomb of unresolved conflict which could detonate in future elections.
What accountability pressures do MPs in Africa face and how do they respond? Evidence from Ghana
Authors: Lindberg Staffan I. 
Published: February 2010

ABSTRACTHow African politicians, especially legislators, behave on a daily basis is still largely unknown. This article gives a unique empirical account of the daily accountability pressures and the strategies that Members of Parliament (MPs) in Ghana employ in responding to the demands that they face. While literature on political clientelism focuses on explanatory factors like lack of political credibility, political machines capable of effective monitoring, autonomy of brokers, high levels of poverty, and political competiveness, the role of institutions has been overlooked. While the existing literature suggests that political clientelism is an optimal strategy in the context of weak institutions, the present analysis finds that the institution of the office of Member of Parliament in Ghana is strong, but shaped by informal norms in ways that favour the provision of private goods in clientelistic networks. The analysis also points to theoretical lessons on how political clientelism can endogenously undermine the conditions for its own existence.
Bilateral donors and aid conditionality in post-conflict peacebuilding: the case of Mozambique
Authors: Manning Carrie , Malbrough Monica 
Published: February 2010

ABSTRACTThis article examines the role of bilateral donors and conditional aid in Mozambique's successful post-war peace process. The literature on peacebuilding has tended to privilege the role of UN missions in explaining the outcomes of post-civil war peace processes. The important role that bilateral donors may play in determining these outcomes has not been thoroughly studied. In Mozambique, donors with country experience, knowledge of domestic political actors and constraints, and a shared commitment to a successful outcome, were indispensable to the success of the peace process. The article details this engagement, arguing that it was not UNOMOZ alone, but UNOMOZ as supported by the flexible responses of these donors, that provided an effective third-party guarantee of the peace agreement in Mozambique. It briefly discusses the broader implications of this finding for understanding international peacebuilding efforts.
Informal Finance and the Urban Poor: An Investigation of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations in Turkey
Authors: EROĞLU ŞEBNEM 
Published: February 2010

AbstractThis study focuses on the organisation among poor households of rotating savings and credit associations locally known in Turkey as gün. Based on a longitudinal study of 17 households, the research demonstrates the distinctive ability of various güns to operate smoothly under inflationary conditions. Unlike the predominant portrayal of güns as a leisure activity for middle-class women, they are shown to act as a self-welfare instrument whereby poor households acquire the discipline of saving towards both their consumption and investment needs. Contrary to the conventional view, these households are found to use güns in circumstances where formal credit and savings options are available.
Civil taxis and wild trucks: the dialectics of social space and subjectivity inDimanche à Bamako
Authors: Skinner Ryan Thomas 
Published: February 2010

AbstractThis article presents a close reading (or listening) of Amadou & Mariam's 2004 album,Dimanche à Bamako, meaning ‘Sunday in Bamako’, produced ‘by and with’ world music maverick Manu Chao. I consider howDimanche à Bamakomusically renders, through sound and lyrical expression, the tensions of ‘global modernity’ in postcolonial Africa and its diaspora. ‘Global modernity’ refers to the fraught encounter between local actors and the globalised socio-economic conditions in which modern subjects are increasingly embedded. By framing these local and global tensions in the context of a modern African city,Dimanche à Bamakooffers a theoretically sophisticated representation of urban African social space that, while rooted in a particular place (Bamako, Mali) attends to the wider world in which a local sense of place gives way to the wanderlust and anxieties of living and labouring in a globalised world. Through critical application of Lefebvrian and Mande socio-spatial theory and focused analysis of several of the album's tracks, I argue thatDimanche à Bamakoelucidates a dialectic of ‘civility’ and ‘wildness’ that shapes the way social space and subjectivity are conceived, lived, and perceived in urban African communities in an era of global modernity.
Good Samaritans and oblivious cheerleaders: ideologies of Portuguese music journalists towards Portuguese music
Authors: Nunes Pedro 
Published: February 2010

AbstractThis article addresses the ideologies developed by Portuguese music journalists towards Portuguese music in the context of the global crisis in the record industry. Music journalists who were once seen as the good Samaritans in coverage of the national repertoire have to reconcile their duty to cover the national acts with the pressures of a global music industry represented by the multinational record companies. Gathering information from interviews conducted between 2001 and 2003, I trace the perceptions of music journalists on coverage of the national repertoire in a period in which a global crisis in the music sector became noticeable and low airplay of Portuguese music became a matter of concern for agents within the local industry. Two approaches emerge from such a context, one more proactive towards coverage of Portuguese music, the other less interested in allowing the influence of the origin filter to determine the journalists' agenda. I conclude that in these two approaches the traditional opposition between music journalists and the music industry needs to be revised.
Tear down the walls: Jefferson Airplane, race, and revolutionary rhetoric in 1960s rock
Authors: Burke Patrick 
Published: February 2010

AbstractWhile the notion of the ‘rock revolution’ of the 1960s has by now become commonplace, scholars have rarely addressed the racial implications of this purported revolution. This article examines a notorious 1968 blackface performance by Grace Slick, lead singer of Jefferson Airplane, to shed light on a significant tendency in 1960s rock: white musicians casting themselves as political revolutionaries by enacting an idealised vision of African American identity. Rock, a form dominated by white musicians and audiences but pervasively influenced by black music and style, conveyed deeply felt but inconsistent notions of black identity in which African Americans were simultaneously subjected to insensitive stereotypes and upheld as examples of moral authority and revolutionary authenticity. Jefferson Airplane's references to black culture and politics were multifaceted and involved both condescending or naïve radical posturing and sincere respect for African American music. The Airplane appear to have been engaged in a complex if imperfect attempt to create a contemporary musical form that reflected African American influences without asserting dominance over those influences. Their example suggests that closer attention to racial issues allows us to address the revolutionary ambitions of 1960s rock without romanticising or trivialising them.
A taxonomy of musical gesture in African American gospel music
Authors: Legg Andrew 
Published: February 2010

AbstractAfrican American gospel music seems without obvious parallel as a musical and social phenomenon of the twentieth century. It is a powerful musical and ‘spiritual’ expression that is to a larger extent defined by the musical style, vocal techniques and performance practices of one of its central figures: the gospel singer. Although these originally African American gospel vocal techniques and practices have now also significantly influenced the development of contemporary popular music and the broader gospel vocal style, the specific terminology used to describe them lacks precise definition, and also highlights the failure of conventional notation in successfully capturing or representing them.This article seeks then to firstly define and annotate some of the key descriptive terms commonly applied to African American gospel singing techniques in order that greater consistency and clarity can be achieved in relation to their usage within contemporary popular music research. Secondly, it will also introduce an analytical notational system, accompanied by a series of annotated musical transcriptions, that forms the basis of the author's taxonomy of musical gesture for African American gospel music, and which may provide a framework for comparative analytical research within the field of gospel-inspired contemporary popular music.
The reformer's charter: setting Bloom'sAnxiety of Influencein the context of melodic rock
Authors: Earl Benjamin 
Published: February 2010

AbstractWhen a band reforms after a period apart, they offer intertextual observations on their previous releases, and consequently on their generic positioning both in the present, and prior to splitting up. This paper considers how reformed bands deal with the weight and expectation that is caused by their initial, original existence before splitting up. I modify Harold Bloom's theory of poetic influence in order to theorise how a reformed band struggle with the weight of themselves as precursor, including not only analysis of the text itself, but the inter-textual discourses surrounding the work. I argue thatPrincess Alice and the Broken Arrow, a release by the melodic rock band Magnum, showcases the band's struggle to gain subcultural capital in their field, and look at the position-taking strategies they employ to deal with their anxiety of influence as the melodic rock field shifts position relative to the field of large-scale production.
Deforestation and conservation in major watersheds of the Brazilian Amazon
Authors: TRANCOSO RALPH , CARNEIRO FILHO ARNALDO , TOMASELLA JAVIER , SCHIETTI JULIANA , FORSBERG BRUCE RIDER , MILLER ROBERT PRITCHARD 
Published: February 2010

SUMMARYConserving natural vegetation cover is of critical importance for maintaining the ecological integrity and hydrological properties of large river basins (more than 100 000 km2). Recent estimates indicate that more than 700 000 km2 of Brazilian Amazon have already been deforested, and to reduce further losses and preserve the important natural and cultural resources in this region, large conservation areas have been created by the Brazilian government. The present study analysed land cover and land use change in the major watersheds of the Brazilian Amazon, in order to evaluate the current balance between deforestation and conservation of natural areas in the region. The results show that watersheds draining the southern part of the basin have suffered the highest deforestation rates, with the largest losses (8.3–20% of total basin area) occurring in the Madeira, Tapajós, Xingu, Araguaia and Tocantins river basins. Most large watersheds already have significant deforestation in their headwaters, which can affect hydrological functions and ecological sustainability. The greatest allocation of land for conservation was encountered in the Trombetas, Xingu and Negro watersheds, where conservation areas occupied 92.5, 56.9 and 50.6% of the total basin, respectively. While extensive areas of the Amazon biome have been deforested, on the scale of large watersheds there is a positive balance between conservation areas and deforestation, and on average the area delimited by conservation areas is more than three times larger than the deforested areas. An analysis by subwatersheds, however, indicates that certain regions have achieved more critical levels of deforestation, in some situations affecting more than 80% of the subwatersheds.
Antarctic blue ice areas - towards extracting palaeoclimate information
Authors: Sinisalo Anna , Moore John C. 
Published: February 2010

AbstractWe review the current scientific knowledge about Antarctic Blue Ice Areas (BIAs) with emphasis on their application for palaeoclimate studies. Substantial progress has been made since the review by Bintanja (1999), in particular dating the archive of ancient ice found on the surface of BIAs has progressed with advances in 14C measurements, tephrachronology, and geomorphological evidence giving better constraints to more sophisticated ice flow models. Flow modelling also provides information about past changes in ice flow velocities, accumulation rates and ice sheet elevation. The availability of gas composition in vertical cores from BIAs allows matching to well-dated global records of greenhouse gas variability over the last glacial-interglacial cycle and longer. It is clear from the limited number of studies to date that BIAs from different regions have quite different histories of formation and preservation, and that they are intimately linked to the response of their surrounding ice sheets to climate variability on glacial-interglacial time-scales. Looking to the future, climate records from BIAs are expected to provide information on variations in Southern Ocean processes as well as ice sheet evolution within the East Antarctic ice sheet at the thermal transition from cold based to warm based ice.
Ocean Gravity Models From Future Satellite Missions
Authors: Louis Gilles , Lequentrec‐Lalancette Marie‐Françoise , Royer Jean‐Yves , Rouxel Didier , Géli Louis , Maïa Marcia , Faillot Mathilde 
Published: February 2010

Over the past 3 decades, satellite altimetry has been a key tool for dynamic ocean studies and for accurately estimating sea surface heights. The geodetic reference surface—the “geoid”—can be approximated as the mean sea surface height of an ocean corrected for dynamic terms such as tides and currents. It is an equipotential surface of the gravity field; and variations of this field are quantified as free‐air anomalies, from which density heterogeneities of the oceanic basement can be inferred.Using such data in combination with other geophysical data, scientists have improved their knowledge of the nature of submarine relief and underlying structures. In solid Earth geophysics, major breakthroughs came from the development of high‐resolution marine gravity models based on closely spaced altimetry profiles collected during the U.S. Navy's Geosat satellite geodetic mission (launched in 1985) and the first version of the European Remote Sensing satellite geodetic mission (ERS 1, launched in 1991). These were combined with other repetitive profiles from the international TOPEX/ POSEIDON satellite (launched in 1992); ERS 1; TOPEX/POSEIDON's successor, Jason (launched in 2001); and the European Space Agency's (ESA) Envisat missions (ERS's successors [see, e.g., Sandwell and Smith, 1997; Andersen and Knudsen, 1998]).
AGU Unveils Redesigned Web Site
Authors: Cairns Ann 
Published: February 2010

AGU's redesigned Web site made its debut in December during the Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Those who haven't yet visited the revamped site are in for some pleasant surprises, including easier navigation requiring fewer click‐throughs; increased visibility for AGU sections and focus groups; more Earth and space science content; and more AGU news.The site's unveiling marked the completion of the first phase of a two‐phase overhaul. More improvements are on the way in the months ahead.