bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
BRIEF REPORT: Varenicline increases striatal dopamine D2/3 receptor binding in rats
Authors: Crunelle Cleo L. , Miller Michelle L. , De Bruin Kora , Van Den Brink Wim , Booij Jan 
Published: August 2009

ABSTRACTIncreasing dopamine D2/3 receptor availability is postulated to be a treatment for drug addiction. Varenicline, an α4β2‐nicotinic partial agonist, is effective for nicotine dependence. We hypothesize that varenicline increases dopamine D2/3 receptor availability. Twenty male drug‐naïve rats were randomized to varenicline (2 mg/kg) or placebo for 14 days, and then injected with the dopamine D2/3 radiotracer 123I‐IBZM. We found significantly higher striatum‐to‐cerebellum binding ratios in both dorsal and ventral striatum for the varenicline group compared with placebo. Varenicline increases dopamine D2/3 receptor availability in drug‐naïve rats. Therefore, varenicline may be an effective treatment for addictions other than smoking.
A retrospective case note review of deceased recipients of vCJD‐implicated blood transfusions
Authors: Gillies M. , Chohan G. , Llewelyn C. A. , MacKenzie J. , Ward H. J. T. , Hewitt P. E. , Will R. G. 
Published: August 2009

Background  To date, four instances of probable transfusion–transmission of variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD) infection have been described, and surviving recipients of vCJD‐implicated blood components have been informed that they may be ‘at risk’ of vCJD. Nearly two‐thirds of all recipients of vCJD‐implicated blood components are deceased, and many died before the vCJD risk was known. The primary aim of this study was to determine retrospectively whether there was evidence that any of the other deceased recipients of vCJD‐implicated blood components had any clinical signs or symptoms suggestive of vCJD in life. In addition, pathological material from recipients, stored at the time of surgery or autopsy, was sought to allow testing for evidence of vCJD infection. A secondary aim of the study was to obtain information on invasive healthcare procedures undertaken on recipients following the transfusion to identify the potential for onward transmission of infection.Methods  A retrospective review of medical case notes of deceased recipients of vCJD‐implicated blood components was carried out, and relevant information was extracted. In cases undergoing post‐mortem, details of the findings were obtained.Results  The medical case notes of 33 (83%) deceased recipients of vCJD‐implicated blood components, not already known to be infected with vCJD, were reviewed. The median age of recipients was 68 years (interquartile range 57–79 years). Almost half (16) were male. The median time from transfusion to death was 175 days (interquartile range 43–701 days). Most (66%) recipients died in hospital. None of the recipients had documented evidence of clinical signs or symptoms suggestive of vCJD. Only two recipients, both of whom died within a year of transfusion, underwent autopsy examination. Neither brain nor peripheral lymphoreticular tissue was available from either recipient, and pathological material was unavailable from any of the other deceased recipients. Almost half of all recipients underwent at least one invasive healthcare procedure post‐transfusion.Conclusions  A retrospective review of the medical case notes of the deceased recipients of vCJD‐implicated blood components found no evidence that any further cases expressed clinical signs or symptoms suggestive of vCJD during life, but only four of the recipients survived for more than 5 years post‐transfusion.
‘Head for my tail’: a new hypothesis to explain how venomous sea snakes avoid becoming prey
Authors: Rasmussen Arne Redsted , Elmberg Johan 
Published: August 2009

AbstractSea snakes are widespread and conspicuous inhabitants of shallow waters in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. They are agile top predators and possess extremely potent venom, but they are still susceptible to predation by large fish, e.g. sharks, and other vertebrates. We describe how crevice‐probing and temporarily non‐vigilant Yellow‐lipped Sea Kraits Laticauda colubrina twist the tail around their length axis so that the tail tip’s lateral aspect corresponds to the dorsal view of the head. In doing so, coloration and pattern in combination with tail movement and posture make the tail appear very similar to the (non‐visible and foraging) head. We examined 98 Laticauda spp. sea snakes in three major museum collections and reviewed the literature to assess the generality and implications of our field observations. This leads us to hypothesize that a combination of: (i) head and tail being similarly coloured and patterned, and (ii) the tail being motioned to resemble the head, is a hitherto overlooked mimetic and ‘prophylactic’ anti‐predator adaptation in the L. colubrina complex, and possibly in other species of sea snake. We propose this is a concerted behavioural–morphological adaptation, and we briefly speculate about its possible fitness trade‐offs as well as its origin. Explicit and testable predictions derived from the hypothesis are presented.
Photosynthetic picoeukaryote community structure in the South East Pacific Ocean encompassing the most oligotrophic waters on Earth
Authors: Lepère Cécile , Vaulot Daniel , Scanlan David J. 
Published: August 2009

SummaryPhotosynthetic picoeukaryotes (PPEs), comprising organisms < 3 μm in size, are important primary producers in marine food webs and include representatives from all known algal lineages. Little is known, however, regarding the composition and distribution of PPE communities, particularly at large spatial scales, or in relation to the underlying biotic and abiotic factors that influence this structure. Here, we analysed PPE community structure along a transect in the South East Pacific Ocean (BIOSOPE cruise) that encompassed a large trophic gradient, including hyper‐oligotrophic waters in the South Pacific Gyre (SPG), considered to be some of the ‘clearest’ natural waters on Earth. Using dot blot hybridizations with 16S rRNA oligonucleotide probes, we established that the PPE community was dominated by members of the classes Prymnesiophyceae and Chrysophyceae throughout the transect. Moreover, clone library construction followed by phylogenetic analysis of sequenced clones revealed several novel 16S rRNA gene lineages, including new clades of prymnesiophytes (designated Prym 16S‐III) and prasinophytes (Pras 16S‐VIII). Pras 16S‐VIII was found at all five stations at which clone libraries were constructed, representing a range of trophic conditions, including the South Pacific Gyre, suggesting members of this clade have a broad distribution in this part of the South East Pacific at least. In contrast, Prym 16S‐III sequences were largely restricted to oligotrophic stations of the SPG. Subsequent multivariate statistical analyses showed that, within the measured factors, chemical and biological factors seem to influence PPE community structure more than physical parameters. However, more than 50% of the variation in distribution of PPE classes remained unexplained.
Fire regimes of China: inference from statistical comparison with the United States
Authors: Krawchuk Meg A. , Moritz Max A. 
Published: August 2009

ABSTRACTAim  Substantial overlap in the climate characteristics of the United States and China results in similar land‐cover types and weather conditions, especially in the eastern half of the two countries. These parallels suggest similarities in fire regimes as well, yet relatively little is known about the historical role of fire in Chinese ecosystems. Consequently, we aimed to infer fire regime characteristics for China based on our understanding of climate–fire relationships in the United States.Location  The conterminous United States and the People's Republic of China.Methods  We used generalized additive models to quantify the relationship between reference fire regime classes adopted by the LANDFIRE initiative in the United States, and a global climate data set. With the models, we determined which climate variables best described the distribution of fire regimes in the United States then used these models to predict the spatial distribution of fire regimes in China. The fitted models were validated quantitatively using receiver operating characteristic area under the curve (AUC). We validated the predicted fire regimes in China by comparison with palaeoecological fire data and satellite‐derived estimates of current fire activity.Results  Quantitative validation using the AUC indicated good discrimination of the distribution of fire regimes by models for the United States. Overall, fire regimes with more frequent return intervals were more likely in the east than in the west. The resolution of available historical and prehistorical fire data for China, including sediment cores, allowed only coarse, qualitative validation, but provided supporting evidence that fire has long been a part of ecosystem function in eastern China. MODIS satellite data illustrated that fire frequency within the last decade supported the classification of much of western China as relatively fire‐free; however, much of south‐eastern China experiences more fire activity than predicted with our models, probably as a function of the extensive use of fire by people.Conclusions  While acknowledging there are many cultural, environmental and historical differences between the United States and China, our fire regime models based on climate data demonstrate potential historical fire regimes for China, and propose that large areas of China share historical fire–vegetation–climate complexes with the United States.
JOINT BIDDING, GOVERNANCE AND PUBLIC PROCUREMENT COSTS:A CASE OF ROAD PROJECTS*
Authors: Estache Antonio , Iimi Atsushi 
Published: August 2009

ABSTRACT***:  To utilize public resources efficiently, it is important to take advantage of competition in public procurement auctions to the maximum extent. Joint bidding is a common practice that potentially facilitates competition. By pooling financial and experiential resources, more firms are expected to enter the market, but it will also directly reduce competition if more than one bidder who is solely qualified makes a coalition. In theory joint bidding may or may not be beneficial to auctioneers, depending on the model. The paper empirically examines the impacts of joint bidding on firms' entry as well as bidding behaviour, using data on public road projects in developing countries. It shows that coalitional bids, in particular by local firms, would be competitive, but foreign joint ventures would undermine competition. It is also found that good governance can encourage firms' entry into the tendering and facilitate joint bidding practices.
Progressive spaces of neoliberalism in Aotearoa: A genealogy and critique
Authors: Bargh Maria , Otter Jacob 
Published: August 2009

AbstractIn this article, we will argue that any investigation of the ‘progressive spaces of neoliberalism’ needs to maintain a critical stance on the neoliberal project. In particular, we suggest that it is important to see the ways ‘progressive spaces of neoliberalism’ are troubled by discourses of colonisation which in turn are themselves disrupted by genealogies of Indigenous struggles. Spaces of neoliberalism are embedded in discourses of colonisation, as space is ultimately grounded in somewhere, in a ‘place’. In Aotearoa, the discourses of colonisation and place are in turn entangled with a genealogy of Maori struggles to maintain and create political, economic and social structures and frameworks. These struggles are also productive, and have the potential to encourage, diverse political economies of production, trade and enterprise distinct from neoliberalism, its progressive spaces, and colonisation. We will investigate two cases to highlight that the ‘messy actualities’ of neoliberalism cannot be extracted from the genealogy of colonisation. Any attempts to start an analysis of progressive space as located in a neutral ‘now and here’ are therefore problematic.
Filling hollowed out spaces with localised meanings, practices and hope: Progressive neoliberal spaces in Te Rarawa
Authors: Lewis Nick , Lewis Owen , Underhill‐Sem Yvonne 
Published: August 2009

AbstractThe contracting out to private providers of services previously delivered within the state has been framed critically as ‘hollowing out’ and read for its erosion of social democracy, social justice and welfare, as well as its inefficiencies in practice. It is commonly dismissed as neoliberalism. In this paper, we highlight the gains made through this new contractualism by Te Oranga, the Family, Health and Education division of Te Runanga o Te Rarawa located in the Far North of New Zealand. Our aim is not to narrate the exceptional, but to point to the inherent resistances to totalising projects residing in agency and place. Placed at the service of a deep sense of community being and community good rather than self‐interest, delivery contracts have enabled Te Oranga to pursue an alternative form of local development and craft a set of progressive spaces. Although highly contingent upon powerful Maori political projects, we argue that the case suggests that gains may be sought in other settings, albeit partial, temporary, and politically contingent. We thus offer a more nuanced account of neoliberalism by highlighting its agency, fractures, politics, and contradictions, and by demonstrating that actualised neoliberalisms are co‐constituted with other political projects.
Urban water supply and local neoliberalism in Tagbilaran City, the Philippines
Authors: Fisher Karen T. 
Published: August 2009

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to explore the processes and outcomes of neoliberalism in relation to urban water supply in the city of Tagbilaran, the Philippines, in order to provide a nuanced account of (an) actually existing hybrid neoliberal space. Using Bakker's typology of market environmentalist reforms in resource management as a guiding frame to link this case to a bigger ‘neoliberal’ conversation, I distinguish how reforms to resource governance at the national level, coupled with changes in the ways in which resource management institutions and resource management organisations function at the local level have acted to constitute local practices of neoliberal governance. Local articulations of (national and supranational) neoliberal and development discourses are revealed as a means for reconceptualising the role of the state and the emergence of new forms of hybrid governance in Tagbilaran. Analysis of the operation of BWUI, a public/private water utility, and the politics of privatisation/private sector participation enables a closer inspection of how water and water services are politicised and resisted by local publics.
Interrogating the production of urban space in China and Vietnam under market socialism
Authors: McGee Terry G. 
Published: August 2009

AbstractThis paper explores two issues. First, it focuses on the question of what is the most appropriate theoretical framework for the study of the urbanisation process in China and Vietnam over the last 30 years? It is argued that Le Fefebvre's theory of the ‘production of urban space’ offers the most useful approach because the political economy it adopts helps identify the major driving forces in the urbanisation process in these formerly socialist societies. The second issue involves the investigation of the differences and similarities in the urbanisation process in the two countries that are engaged in similar processes of structural economic transformation. The conclusion suggests that despite historical and cultural differences between Vietnam and China, the urbanisation process in both countries is exhibiting converging features as both countries are adopting a form of ‘hybrid urbanisation’ that involves a combination of socialist and market economies that does not involve an inevitable move to ‘capitalism’.
Maternal pre‐pregnancy obesity and risk for inattention and negative emotionality in children
Authors: Rodriguez Alina 
Published: August 2009

Objective:  This study aimed to replicate and extend previous work showing an association between maternal pre‐pregnancy adiposity and risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in children.Methods:  A Swedish population‐based prospective pregnancy–offspring cohort was followed up when children were 5 years old (N = 1,714). Mothers and kindergarten teachers rated children’s ADHD symptoms, presence and duration of problems, and emotionality. Dichotomized outcomes examined difficulties of clinical relevance (top 15% of the distribution). Analyses adjusted for pregnancy (maternal smoking, depressive symptoms, life events, education, age, family structure), birth outcomes (birth weight, gestational age, infant sex) and concurrent variables (family structure, maternal depressive symptoms, parental ADHD symptoms, and child overweight) in an attempt to rule out confounding.Results:  Maternal pre‐pregnancy overweight and obesity predicted high inattention symptom scores and obesity was associated with a two‐fold increase in risk of difficulties with emotion intensity and emotion regulation according to teacher reports. Means of maternal ratings were unrelated to pre‐pregnancy body mass index (BMI). Presence and duration of problems were associated with both maternal over and underweight according to teachers.Conclusions:  Despite discrepancies between maternal and teacher reports, these results provide further evidence that maternal pre‐pregnancy overweight and obesity are associated with child inattention symptoms and extend previous work by establishing a link between obesity and emotional difficulties. Maternal adiposity at the time of conception may be instrumental in programming child mental health, as prenatal brain development depends on maternal energy supply. Possible mechanisms include disturbed maternal metabolic function. If maternal pre‐pregnancy obesity is a causal risk factor, the potential for prevention is great.
The birth of the housing consumer in the United States, 1918–1960
Authors: Harris Richard 
Published: August 2009

AbstractBetween 1918 and 1960, those Americans who were able to buy a home learned to think and act as housing consumers. By 1960, the typical couple purchased a finished dwelling from a speculative builder instead of hiring the services of a contractor. Builders now produced for an anonymous market. They learned how to sell, and buyers learned to expect, a comprehensive and standardized package of services that included long‐term financing. Such financing required, and buttressed, a Fordist regime of mass production and consumption, and was promoted after 1934 by a new federal agency. It stabilized the economy by pushing families to make long‐range spending plans, while shaping their pattern of monthly expenditures. Increasingly, Americans came to think of homes as commodities, as investments and as means of self‐expression. They enacted these assumptions by browsing through model homes, by making elaborate financial calculations, by borrowing and by taking on home repair and improvement projects. These changes were promoted by the real estate industry and the state, and were soon accepted for the comfort and convenience they offered.
Privatization, commodification and transformation in Japanese housing: ephemeral house – eternal home
Authors: Ronald Richard 
Published: August 2009

AbstractThe space and place of the Japanese home holds an iconic status in both foreign and indigenous understandings of Japanese life. The architectural forms and bounded spaces of Japanese houses have historically been embedded in social practices that integrate individuals with hierarchical orders of space and social relations moving outwards from the house to community. Housing units and residential neighbourhoods have, however, undergone considerable transformation in the last century. Homes have been increasingly privatized, commodified and marketized, while the features of housing and neighbourhoods have been intensively modernized and urbanized. This paper considers transformations in the form of Japanese housing and the extent to which contemporary housing production and consumption mediates historically embedded notions of domestic relations and space.
Molecular aspects of ischaemic postconditioning
Authors: Kaur Shaminder , Jaggi Amteshwar Singh , Singh Nirmal 
Published: August 2009

AbstractPreconditioning, a well established phenomenon had been used since 1980s to attenuate ischaemia‐reperfusion induced injury. However, inability to predict the onset of ischaemia in clinical settings led to the discovery of a new concept of postconditioning (PoCo), in 2000s whereby brief repetitive cycles of ischaemia with intermittent reperfusion followed by prolonged ischaemia‐elicited tissue protection. There is an impressive array of molecular mechanisms contributing to PoCo‐mediated tissue‐protection, which include triggers like adenosine (ADO), opioid, erythropoietin (EPO), endogenous nitric‐oxide, reactive oxygen species, acetylcholine, tissue factors, pro‐inflammatory cytokines and bradykinin; mediators like reperfusion injury salvage kinase pathways including phosphoinositide‐3‐kinase, extra‐cellular signal regulated kinase½ pathway, protein kinase G and protein kinase C; end‐effectors like mitohondrial permeability transition pore and mitochondrial potassium ATP channel. The clinical applicability of PoCo has been extended with the use of PoCo mimetic agents like insulin, glucagon like peptide, EPO, statins and ADO before reperfusion in patients with ischaemia reperfusion injury. Remote PoCo has also emerged as a new concept; however, considerable research is required for understanding its molecular mechanisms. In this review, an exhaustive attempt has been made to unearth some molecular aspects of PoCo.
Effects of myostatin deletion in aging mice
Authors: Morissette Michael R. , Stricker Janelle C. , Rosenberg Michael A. , Buranasombati Cattleya , Levitan Emily B. , Mittleman Murray A. , Rosenzweig Anthony 
Published: August 2009

SummaryInhibitors of myostatin, a negative regulator of skeletal muscle mass, are being developed to mitigate aging‐related muscle loss. Knock‐out (KO) mouse studies suggest myostatin also affects adiposity, glucose handling and cardiac growth. However, the cardiac consequences of inhibiting myostatin remain unclear. Myostatin inhibition can potentiate cardiac growth in specific settings (Morissette et al., 2006), a concern because of cardiac hypertrophy is associated with adverse clinical outcomes. Therefore, we examined the systemic and cardiac effects of myostatin deletion in aged mice (27–30 months old). Heart mass increased comparably in both wild‐type (WT) and KO mice. Aged KO mice maintained twice as much quadriceps mass as aged WT; however, both groups lost the same percentage (36%) of adult muscle mass. Dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry revealed increased bone density, mineral content, and area in aged KO vs. aged WT mice. Serum insulin and glucose levels were lower in KO mice. Echocardiography showed preserved cardiac function with better fractional shortening (58.1% vs. 49.4%, P = 0.002) and smaller left ventricular diastolic diameters (3.41 vs. 2.71, P = 0.012) in KO vs. WT mice. Phospholamban phosphorylation was increased 3.3‐fold in KO hearts (P < 0.05), without changes in total phospholamban, sarco(endo)plasmic reticulum calcium ATPase 2a or calsequestrin. Aged KO hearts showed less fibrosis by Masson’s Trichrome staining. Thus, myostatin deletion does not affect aging‐related increases in cardiac mass and appears beneficial for bone density, insulin sensitivity and heart function in senescent mice. These results suggest that clinical interventions designed to inhibit skeletal muscle mass loss with aging could have beneficial effects on other organ systems as well.