bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Annotation and analysis of low‐complexity protein families of Anopheles gambiae that are associated with cuticle
Authors: Cornman R. S. , Willis J. H. 
Published: September 2009

AbstractWe have characterized four new families of homologous genes of the mosquito, Anopheles gambiae, all of which include members shown by previous work to be cuticular in nature. The CPLCG, CPLCW, CPLCP, and CPLCA families (where CPLC is ‘cuticular protein of low complexity’) encode proteins with a high proportion of low‐complexity sequence. We have also annotated the An. gambiae Tweedle genes, a family of cuticular protein genes first described in Drosophila, and additional ungrouped An. gambiae cuticular proteins identified by proteomics. Our annotations reveal multiple gene‐family expansions that are specific to Diptera or Culicidae. The CPLCG and CPLCW families occur within a large and dynamic tandem array on chromosome 3R that includes sets of concertedly evolving genes. Most gene families exhibit two or more different expression profiles during development.
Fertile bull sperm aneuploidy and chromatin integrity in relationship to fertility
Authors: Rybar R. , Kopecka V. , Prinosilova P. , Kubickova S. , Veznik Z. , Rubes J. 
Published: September 2009

SummaryAneuploidy is associated with spontaneous abortions, perinatal mortality, mental retardation and with embryonic and foetal mortality. Most of these abnormalities originate as a result of meiosis errors during gametogenesis. The main purpose of the study was to analyse frequency of aneuploidies of sex chromosomes and chromosome 6 by three‐colour fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) in 47 young bulls, candidates for artificial insemination programme with cryopreserved semen and to investigate the influence of aneuploidies and disturbed sperm chromatin integrity on non‐return rates, the frequencies of abortions, perinatal mortality and stillbirths. The average frequencies of spermatozoa with disomy for chromosomes X, Y, XY and 6 were 0.032, 0.005, 0.003 and 0.039% respectively. The incidence of XX66, YY66 and XY66 diploidy was 0.017, 0.006 and 0.015% respectively. Frequencies of meiotic II errors were significantly higher than meiotic I errors (p < 0.01). More X bearing spermatozoa than Y bearing spermatozoa were detected (5151 vs. 5022; p < 0.01). Sperm chromatin damage expressed by DNA fragmentation index (DFI) was 5.3 ± 3.7 and percentage of cells with defective chromatin condensation (HDS) was 1.4 ± 0.8. No correlation was found between sperm aneuploidy and basic sperm analysis. The relationship was found between non‐return rate and total aneuploidy (r = −0.310; p = 0.036). Significant correlation was found between sex disomy, total aneuploidy (disomy of chromosomes 6, X, Y and XY spermatozoa and diploidy) and stillbirths (r = 0.390; p = 0.013; and r = 0.331; p = 0.037). Chromosome 6 disomy correlated with perinatal mortality (r = 0.317; p = 0.047). HDS correlated significantly with total aneuploidy (r = 0.449; p = 0.002). Our study indicated that aneuploidy frequencies in young fertile bull spermatozoa are relatively low. Nevertheless, there exists a variability in aneuploidy frequencies amongst bulls, which appears to be able to have an influence on the fertility of these animals.
Resurrection kinetics of photosynthesis in desiccation‐tolerant terrestrial green algae (Chlorophyta) on tree bark
Authors: Lüttge U. , Büdel B. 
Published: September 2009

AbstractThe rough bark of orchard trees (Malus) around Darmstadt is predominantly covered in red to purple‐brown layers (biofilms) of epiphytic terrestrial alga of Trentepohlia umbrina. The smooth bark of forest trees (Fagus sylvatica L. and Acer sp.) in the same area is covered by bright green biofilms composed of the green algae Desmococcus, Apatococcus and Trebouxia, with a few cells of Coccomyxa and ‘Chlorella’ trebouxioides between them. These algae are desiccation tolerant. After samples of bark with the biofilms were kept in dry air in darkness for various periods of time, potential quantum yield of PSII, Fv/Fm, recovered during rehydration upon rewetting. The kinetics and degree of recovery depended on the length of time that the algae were kept in dry air in the desiccated state. Recovery was better for green biofilm samples, i.e. quite good even after 80 days of desiccation (Fv/Fm = ca. 50% of initial value), than the red samples, where recovery was only adequate up to ca. 30–40 days of desiccation (Fv/Fm = ca. 20–55% of initial value). It is concluded that the different bark types constitute different ecophysiological niches that can be occupied by the algae and that can be distinguished by their capacity to recover from desiccation after different times in the dry state.
The influence of skin temperature and skin perfusion on the cephalocaudal progression of jaundice in newborns
Authors: Purcell Natalie , Beeby Philip J 
Published: September 2009

Aim:  Despite being widely recognized, the cephalocaudal progression of jaundice in newborns (Kramer's Rule) has never been satisfactorily explained. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that the cephalocaudal progression of jaundice in newborns is related to regional differences in skin temperature and skin perfusion.Methods:  A convenience sample of 50 infants was included in the study. On each infant, a transcutaneous bilirubin, skin temperature and capillary refill time measurement was made at five sites; the forehead, sternum, lower abdomen, mid thigh and sole. The relationship between the three variables was studied by analysis of variance.Results:  The transcutaneous bilirubin measurements upheld Kramer's observation, being significantly higher at the head and chest than at the thigh and sole (P < 0.001). A similar pattern was found for both skin temperature and capillary refill, both significantly different at the head compared to the sole (P < 0.001).Conclusion:  The results of the study support the hypothesis that the cephalocaudal progression of jaundice in newborns is a consequence of diminished capillary blood flow in distal parts of the body. It is hypothesized that newborn infants preferentially perfuse their head and proximal parts of their body in the first few days of life, leading to higher temperatures and increased bilirubin deposition at these sites.
Risks of severity and readmission of Indigenous and non‐Indigenous children hospitalised for bronchiolitis
Authors: Bailey Emily J , Maclennan Carolyn , Morris Peter S , Kruske Sue G , Brown Ngiare , Chang Anne B 
Published: September 2009

Objective:  To describe the characteristics of children admitted to Royal Darwin Hospital with bronchiolitis, and to compare the severity of illness and incidence of subsequent readmission in Indigenous and non‐Indigenous children.Design, Setting and Participants:  Retrospective study of 101 children (aged ≤2 years) hospitalised with bronchiolitis to Royal Darwin Hospital between April 2005 and December 2006.Main Outcome Measures:  Admission characteristics and indices of severity, treatment required (antibiotics etc.), reasons and incidence of readmissions (within 6 months).Results:  Indigenous children had significantly more severe illness then non‐Indigenous children (n= 80 and 21, respectively), longer hospital stay (median = 6 and 3 days; P= 0.001) and oxygen requirement (median = 3 and 0; P= 0.004), pneumonia (n= 14 and 0; P= 0.04) and antibiotics treatment (48 and 4; P= 0.001). The readmission rate for bronchiolitis was high (23%) with no significant difference between Indigenous and non‐Indigenous children.Conclusion:  Indigenous Australian children hospitalised with bronchiolitis have significantly more severe illness than non‐Indigenous children. Points of intervention that can address this and the identified high readmission rate (within 6 months) are required.
Lower genital tract lesions requiring surgical intervention in girls: Perspective from a developing country
Authors: Ekenze Sebastian O , Mbadiwe Okezie M , Ezegwui Hyginius U 
Published: September 2009

Aim:  To determine the spectrum, outcome of treatment and the challenges of managing surgical lesions of lower genital tract in girls in a low‐resource setting.Method:  Retrospective study of 87 girls aged 13‐years and younger, with lower genital tract lesions managed between February 2002 and January 2007 at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, southeastern Nigeria. Clinical charts were reviewed to determine the types, management, outcome of treatment and management difficulties.Results:  The median age at presentation was 1 year (range 2 days–13 years). Congenital lesions comprised 67.8% and acquired lesions 32.2%. The lesions included: masculinised external genitalia (24), vestibular fistula from anorectal malformation (23), post‐circumcision labial fusion (12), post‐circumcision vulval cyst (6), low vaginal malformations (6), labial adhesion (5), cloacal malformation (3), bifid clitoris (3) urethral prolapse (3), and acquired rectovaginal fistula (2). Seventy‐eight (89.7%) had operative treatment. Procedure related complications occurred in 19 cases (24.4%) and consisted of surgical wound infection (13 cases), labial adhesion (4 cases) and urinary retention (2 cases). There was no mortality. Overall, 14 (16.1%) abandoned treatment at one stage or another. Challenges encountered in management were inadequate diagnostic facilities, poor multidisciplinary collaboration and poor patient follow up.Conclusion:  There is a wide spectrum of lower genital lesion among girls in our setting. Treatment of these lesions may be challenging, but the outcome in most cases is good. High incidence of post‐circumcision complications and poor treatment compliance may require more efforts at public enlightenment.
ANALYSIS OF PROGNOSTIC FACTORS IN PATIENTS WITH GASTRIC VARICES AFTER ENDOSCOPIC TREATMENT
Authors: Wakatsuki Takeru , Obara Katsutoshi , Irisawa Atsushi , Sakamoto Hiroaki , Kuwana Toshimitu , Takiguchi Fujio , Saito Ayako , Shishido Hideo , Hikichi Takuto , Oyama Hitoshi , Shibukawa Goro , Takagi Tadayuki , Yamamoto Go , Imamura Hidemichi , Takahashi Yuta , Sato Ai , Sato Masaki , Kasukawa Reiji , Ohira Hiromasa 
Published: September 2009

Background:  The prognostic factors, including gastric variceal bleeding itself, in patients with gastric varices (GV) after endoscopic treatment remain unclear. The aim of this study was to analyze prognostic factors in patients with GV after endoscopic treatment as well as to evaluate safety and efficacy of our endoscopic treatment.Patients and Methods:  This study enrolled 115 patients who underwent endoscopic treatment for GV between October 1988 and December 2003 using cyanoacrylate and 5% ethanolamine oleate. Successful hemostasis, recurrence rates, rebleeding rates, survival rates, complications and prognostic factors after the treatment were retrospectively reviewed.Results:  Treatment sessions for GV were performed 3.4 ± 2.5 times. All cases, including 14 emergency cases, were treated successfully. The cumulative recurrence rates at 1, 3 and 5 years after the treatment were 7.0%, 15.6% and 20.0%, respectively, and the cumulative rebleeding rates at 1, 3 and 5 years were 3.5%, 8.7% and 14.8%, respectively. The overall survival rates were 78.3%, 63.7% and 51.5% at 1, 3 and 5 years, respectively. Grade B or C in Child–Pugh classification, emergency or elective cases, and association with hepatocellular carcinoma were identified as significant negative prognostic factors after endoscopic treatment by multivariate analysis. Although several complications were observed, there was no mortality.Conclusions:  Grade B or C in Child–Pugh classification, emergency or elective situation, and association with hepatocellular carcinoma are negative prognostic factors after endoscopic treatment.
Chronic prostatitis presenting with dysfunctional voiding and effects of pelvic floor biofeedback treatment
Authors: He Wei , Chen Minfeng , Zu Xiongbing , Li Yuan , Ning Keping , Qi Lin 
Published: September 2009

Study Type – Therapy (case series) Level of Evidence 4OBJECTIVETo investigate the features of chronic prostatitis presenting with dysfunctional voiding (DV) and the effects of pelvic floor biofeedback (PFB).PATIENTS AND METHODSThe study included 21 patients, diagnosed by having symptoms for ≥3 months, including urinary frequency and urgency, voiding difficulty, upper abdominal or perineal discomfort, and with a score of ≥1 on the first and second part of the National Institutes of Health Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index (NIH‐CPSI). Patients with bacterial prostatitis, urethritis, interstitial cystitis, urethral stricture and neurogenic bladder were excluded. All patients had a urodynamic examination, to assess the uroflow curve, maximum urinary flow rate (Qmax), maximum detrusor pressure during the storage phase (Pdet.max), maximum urethral pressure (MUP) and the maximum urethral closure pressure (MUCP) were recorded. PFB was carried out in patients with non‐neurogenic detrusor sphincter dyssynergia, and the effects evaluated after 10 weeks.RESULTSBefore and after PFB treatment the mean (sd) Qmax, Pdet.max, MUP, MUCP were 8.2 (4.1) vs 15.1 (7.3) mL/s, 125.1 (75.3) vs 86.3 (54.2) cmH2O, 124.3 (23.3) vs 65.4 (23.0) cmH2O and 101.5 (43.6) vs 43.5 (16.7) cmH2O, all significantly different (P < 0.05). The respective differences in the pain, urination and life impact subdomain scores, and total scores, of the NIH‐CPSI were 4.0 (2.0) vs 2.2 (1.7), 7.9 (2.1) vs 2.2 (1.9), 9.6 (2.7) vs 2.9 (2.6) and 21.7 (4.8) vs 8.4 (4.6), and all differences were significant (P < 0.05).CONCLUSIONSThere might be DV in patients with chronic prostatitis and lower urinary tract symptoms. Urodynamics showed a low Qmax and increasing intravesical pressure and, in some patients, increasing urethral pressure. Urodynamics could be used to help in the diagnosis, and to select the most appropriate treatment. PFB had satisfactory short‐term effects on these patients.
Effectiveness of web‐based interventions in achieving weight loss and weight loss maintenance in overweight and obese adults: a systematic review with meta‐analysis
Authors: Neve M. , Morgan P. J. , Jones P. R. , Collins C. E. 
Published: September 2009

SummaryThe objectives of this systematic review are to evaluate the effectiveness of web‐based interventions on weight loss and maintenance and identify which components of web‐based interventions are associated with greater weight change and low attrition rates. A literature search from 1995 to April 2008 was conducted. Studies were eligible for inclusion if: participants were aged ≥18 years with a body mass index ≥25, at least one study arm involved a web‐based intervention with the primary aim of weight loss or maintenance, and reported weight‐related outcomes. Eighteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Thirteen studies aimed to achieve weight loss, and five focused on weight maintenance. Heterogeneity was evident among the studies with seven research questions examined across interventions of varying intensity. Seven studies were assessed for effectiveness based on percentage weight change, with four studies deemed effective. Although the four meta‐analyses suggest meaningful weight change, it is not possible to determine the effectiveness of web‐based interventions in achieving weight loss or maintenance due to heterogeneity of designs and thus the small number of comparable studies. Higher usage of website features may be associated with positive weight change, but we do not know what features improve this effect or reduce attrition.
The Collective Household, Household Production and Efficiency of Marginal Reforms
Authors: ALLGOOD SAM 
Published: September 2009

AbstractMost research on the welfare properties of taxes employs the unitary model of the household, ignoring household production. A simple model provides expressions for the changes in individual utility given marginal reforms to government policy. It is shown that the burden of a higher tax on household goods falls on the household member that consumes more than they produce or purchase. Numerical calculations show that price substitution (complementarity) between home and market labor increases (decreases) aggregate efficiency costs of a marginal redistribution of income without impacting the intra‐household distribution of utility changes. Modeling household goods as public versus private can alter the distributional consequences of marginal reforms.
Investment in Tourism Market and Reputation
Authors: CLAUDE DENIS , ZACCOUR GEORGES 
Published: September 2009

AbstractRecent contributions in tourism economics acknowledge that the tourism market is imperfectly competitive and, as such, should be studied from an industrial organization perspective. This approach seems especially relevant to shed lights on one issue of importance for tourism destinations: how to achieve sustainable tourism development? Indeed, it has long been empirically observed that tourism development follows a life cycle. After a period of growth, the development of touristic (mountain and seaside) resorts usually stagnate and decline. At least part of the explanation for this pattern is to be found in the evolution of destinations' reputation over time. The present paper investigates the incentives for adjacent tourist resorts to invest in quality in order to maintain their collective reputation. We propose a dynamic model where (1) several adjacent tourist resorts select their tourist flows and (2) invest in order to remedy to the detrimental effects tourism flows have on local environmental amenities. The overall tourist presence and the sum of investments made by tourist resorts jointly define the quality of the touristic product offered by this tourism destination. We assume that this quality cannot be observed by consumers at the time of purchase. However, in this situation of imperfect information, consumers form expectations about the quality of the touristic product offered at any point of time. These expectations define the collective reputation of tourist resorts, determine the position of the tourist resorts' demand curve and constitute the state variable in the differential game. We characterize and compare equilibrium strategies under a noncooperative and investments coordination regimes.
WHAT SIN IS: A DIFFERENTIAL ANALYSIS
Authors: COUENHOVEN JESSE 
Published: September 2009

AbstractSin is clearly evil, but what differentiates sin from evil? The idea that sin is moral evil is widely held, but important theological arguments have been posed against it. Theologians who reject sin moralism have, however, found it hard to distinguish sin from evil—partially because they share hidden assumptions with sin moralists. Helped by a philosophical theology of deep responsibility, I propound sin responsibilism: sin is culpable evil. This analysis of sin is open to multiple accounts of sin's relation to morality or theories of responsibility, and thus of sin's scope—but I defend a non‐moralistic, compatibilist sin responsibilism.
PAUL RICOEUR AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS: NARRATIVE IDENTITY AND THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY
Authors: DeLASHMUTT MICHAEL W. 
Published: September 2009

AbstractThis article attempts to reconcile the holistically understood and embodied philosophical anthropology indicated by Paul Ricoeur's concept of “narrative identity” with Christian personal eschatology, as realized in the bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Narrative identity resonates with spiritual autobiography in the Christian tradition—evinced here by a brief comparison with the confessed self of St Augustine of Hippo—and offers to theology a means of explaining identity in a way which: 1) places care for the other firmly within the construction of one's sense of self; 2) accounts for radical change over time and 3) hints at the possibility of the in‐breaking of the infinite into the finite. In this article I will contend that narrative identity provides theology with an exemplary means of framing selfhood which is ultimately congruent with the orthodox Christian belief in the resurrection of the body.
Re‐imaging the City Centre for the Middle Classes: Regeneration, Gentrification and Symbolic Policies in ‘Loser Cities’
Authors: ROUSSEAU MAX 
Published: September 2009

AbstractThis article aims to show how the governments of two industrial cities in France and the UK have now come to the view that middle‐class reinvestment in the city centre offers a solution to urban economic decline, and so have encouraged the middle class to move in by implementing ‘symbolic policies’. Their objective is to transform the image of the post‐industrial city through cultural and urban planning policy, in order to adapt it to the supposed taste of potential gentrifiers. This development in strategy results from both external constraints and internal political changes in these cities. The failure of earlier redevelopment strategies is also a factor in explaining this paradoxical phenomenon, in which a social group that is, in fact, almost absent from the central spaces of these cities has now been accorded the status of ‘systematic winners’.Résumé Cet article a pour objectif de montrer comment les gouvernements de deux villes industrielles, en France et en Grande‐Bretagne, considèrent désormais que le réinvestissement du centre‐ville par les classes moyennes constitue une solution au déclin économique urbain, et en viennent ainsi à favoriser leur arrivée par la mise en oeuvre de «politiques symboliques»: par des actions sur la culture et l'urbanisme, l'objectif est de transformer l'image de la ville postindustrielle pour l'adapter au goût supposé des gentrifieurs potentiels. Cette évolution stratégique est tout à la fois le résultat de contraintes externes et de transformations politiques internes aux villes. L'échec des précédentes stratégies de re‐développement est également un facteur explicatif de ce phénomène paradoxal qui rend «systématiquement gagnant» depuis peu un groupe social pourtant quasiment absent de l'espace central de ces villes.