bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Analysis of C‐glycosyl Flavonoids from South American Passiflora Species by HPLC‐DAD and HPLC‐MS
Authors: Zucolotto Silvana Maria , Fagundes Carize , Reginatto Flávio Henrique , Ramos Freddy A. , Castellanos Leonardo , Duque Carmenza , Schenkel Eloir Paulo 
Published: August 2011

ABSTRACTIntroductionLeaves and fruits of Passiflora species are widely used around the world in popular medicine, mainly as sedatives and tranquilisers. C‐glycosyl flavonoids are the main components of these species.ObjectiveTo investigate the constituent patterns and to develop a chromatographic method for the characterisation of the C‐glycosyl flavonoids profile of the extracts of the leaves and the pericarp of South American Passiflora species.MethodologyThe chemical composition of extracts from the leaves and the fruits' pericarp of Passiflora edulis var. flavicarpa, P. edulis var. edulis, Passiflora alata, Passiflora tripartita var. mollissima, Passiflora quadrangularis, Passiflora manicata and Passiflora ligularis was evaluated for the presence of C‐glycosyl flavonoids. Two separate HPLC methods were developed suitable for a diode array detector (DAD) and a MS detector. Separation by HPLC‐DAD was achieved on a Luna C‐18 column, using solvent A (tetrahydrofuran–isopropanol–acetonitrile) and solvent B (H3PO4 0.5%) in an isocratic elution mode. In the HPLC‐MS, the components were separated on a Luna RP‐18A column by a gradient elution (water–acetonitrile–formic acid).ResultsThe presence of C‐glycosyl flavonoids was identified in leaves and pericarp of P. edulis var. flavicarpa, P. alata, P. edulis var. edulis and P. tripartita var. molissima, but only in leaf extracts of P. quadrangularis and P. manicata and not at all in P. ligularis. The different species and varieties showed different major constituents. The C‐glycosyl flavonoids identified more frequently were orientin, isoorientin, vitexin and isovitexin.ConclusionThe methods established are simple and can be used as a tool for the characterisation and quality control of pharmaceutical preparations containing these Passiflora extracts. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A trust‐based noise injection strategy for privacy protection in cloud
Authors: Zhang Gaofeng , Yang Yun , Yuan Dong , Chen Jinjun 
Published: August 2011

SUMMARYCloud promises users that they can present and deploy IT services in a pay‐as‐you‐go fashion in an open and virtualized cloud environment while saving huge capital investment in their own IT infrastructure. In this sense, protection of users' privacy is critical and has become one of the most concerned issues as otherwise users may eventually lose the confidence and passion of deploying cloud in practice. Under some special cloud circumstances, some users' privacy, such as plans or habits, could be induced from their service requests by service providers without permissions from users. In this regard, obfuscation strategy can protect this kind of privacy by injecting ‘noise’ service requests to confuse potential ‘immoral’ service providers. However, existing noise obfuscation strategies focus on single noise injection whereas investigation of noise injection architecture has been neglected. Especially, a common service pattern in inter‐clouds environment, the cooperative service process including different service providers, makes the risk of privacy serious and uncontrollable by the spread of users' privacy. To address this, we present a novel trust‐based noise injection strategy for privacy protection in cloud. To support the strategy, we describe our noise injection architecture in cloud which specializes in the relations between various service roles in inter‐clouds based on our trust model. The simulation can demonstrate that our noise injection strategy could significantly improve the effectiveness of privacy protection. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The global financial crisis and Islamic finance
Authors: Kayed Rasem N. , Hassan M. Kabir 
Published: August 2011

AbstractThe conventional view holds that the current global financial crisis was caused by extraordinarily high liquidity, reckless lending practices, and the rapid pace of financial engineering, which created complex and opaque financial instruments used for risk transfer. There was a breakdown of the lender‐borrower relationship and informational problems caused by a lack of transparency in asset market prices, particularly in the market for structured credit instruments. There was outdated, lax, or absent regulatory‐supervisory oversight; faulty risk management and accounting models; and the emergence of an incentive structure that not only encouraged excessive risk taking but also created a complicit coalition of financial institutions, real estate developers and appraisers, insurance companies, and credit rating agencies whose actions led to a deliberate underpricing of risk. Such a crisis would not have occurred under an Islamic financial system—due to the fact that most, if not all, of the factors that have caused or contributed to the development and spread of the crisis are not allowed under the rules and guidance of Shariah. The current global financial crisis is largely seen as a real test of the resilience of the Islamic financial services industry and its ability to present itself as a more reliable alternative to the conventional financial system. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The global financial crisis: Some suggestions for reform of the global financial architecture in the light of Islamic finance
Authors: Chapra M. Umer 
Published: August 2011

AbstractThe article argues that the primary cause of the current subprime mortgage crisis in the United States is the absence of adequate market discipline in the financial system. This tends to promote excessive lending, high leverage, speculation, and an unsustainable rise in asset prices. Unwinding later on gives rise to a vicious cycle of selling that feeds on itself and leads to a steep decline in asset prices followed by financial crisis and economic slowdown. The solution lies in introducing risk sharing along with the availability of credit for primarily the purchase of real goods and services that Islamic finance aims at introducing. This can help inject greater discipline into the system and, thereby, substantially reduce financial instability. Since the introduction of greater discipline into the financial system may deprive the subprime borrowers of credit, the article also discusses the need for finding ways of satisfying their genuine credit needs. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The internationalization of an Arab bank: The case of Ahli United Bank of Bahrain
Authors: Khan Golam Mostafa , Amine Lyn S. , Uddin Syed Jamal , Zaman Monir 
Published: August 2011

AbstractAhli United Bank of Bahrain (AUB) has “leapfrogged” over early stages of internationalization by means of multiple rapid acquisitions of competitors. Use of this high‐cost, high‐risk strategy is well known among companies with the resources to invest in international expansion, but its application has not yet been studied in depth among companies based in the Middle East. This theory‐driven case study examines the growth record of AUB, its place in the regional banking industry in the Gulf, and its successful internationalization as an Arab bank. The article concludes with a detailed assessment of managerial and theoretical implications arising from the case study, and proposes further research to understand better the process of internationalization by companies expanding from a base in the Middle East. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Transnational corporations and the global water industry
Authors: Singh Satwinder , Dickson Keith 
Published: August 2011

AbstractThis article takes stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) undertaken by transnational corporations (TNCs) in the global water industry and examines the evidence on the impact of their operations in host countries. Between 1996 and 2006, approximately $12 billion were invested in water‐related sectors, of which 75% came from the private sector (including TNCs) from just four countries, while tentative calculations put the global share of investment by TNCs at 56%. Presently, 243 enterprises have interests in 409 water projects in 53 host countries. However, just six countries have received over half of the total investment. A survey of the evidence reports mixed results of the impact of TNCs' investment in host countries. It is argued that the biggest issue here is pricing, a dilemma that, alongside the privatization issue of host countries' water industry, is discussed in the concluding section. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The rocky road to modernity: 20 years of the Russian capital market
Authors: Kuznetsova Olga , Kuznetsov Andrei , Mirkin Yakov M. 
Published: August 2011

AbstractFrom a modest start almost 20 years ago, the Russian financial market has emerged as a major force in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. This article offers a retrospective account of the two decades of development of the financial sector in Russia, with an emphasis on the securities market; outlines the main stages in its development; and proposes an assessment of the capital market in comparison to other international markets. We conclude with an overview of the market's performance during the current financial crisis. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
PSA Testing and Its Relationship with Social Deprivation
Authors: Jackson Benjamin L. , Hope Katrina , Jackson Christopher L. , Williams Simon T. 
Published: August 2011

Objective: To determine whether social deprivation influenced the rate of PSA testing per head of male population within the catchment area of our institution. Patients and methods: We retrospectively collated all PSA tests performed by general practitioners within an 18-month period in the catchment area of our institution ( n = 10,695). PSA testing frequency within each lower super output area (LSOA) within the catchment area of our hospital was determined. The social deprivation of each LSOA was assessed using the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2007 index (IMD). Using these data, the percentage of men undergoing PSA tests in each LSOA was calculated as was the percentage of positive tests amongst those tested. Logistic regression analysis was performed with age and IMD 2007 scores as covariates. Results: Increasing IMD 2007 score was independently associated with a decreased likelihood of PSA testing (odds ratio 0.976 (95% confidence interval 0.959–0.994) p = 0.008). There was no association between IMD 2007 score and the rate of positive tests (odds ratio 0.997 (0.984–1.009) p = 0.60). Conclusions: Increasing levels of social deprivation demonstrate a small but significant association with a lower incidence of PSA testing in the catchment area of our institution. © 2011 British Association of Urological Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Delta-aminolevulinate dehydratase activity in red blood cells of rats infected withTrypanosoma evansi
Authors: FRANÇA RAQUELI T. , DA SILVA ALEKSANDRO S. , WOLKMER PATRÍCIA , OLIVEIRA VITOR A. , PEREIRA MARIA E. , LEAL MARTA L. R. , SILVA CÁSSIA B. , NUNES MATHEUS A. G. , DRESSLER VALDERI L. , MAZZANTI CINTHIA M. , MONTEIRO SILVIA G. , LOPES SONIA T. A. 
Published: August 2011

SUMMARYThe aim of this study was to evaluate the activity of delta-aminolevulinate dehydratase (δ-ALA-D) in red blood cells of rats infected withTrypanosoma evansiand establish its association with haematocrit, serum levels of iron and zinc and lipid peroxidation. Thirty-six male rats (Wistar) were divided into 2 groups with 18 animals each. Group A was non-infected while Group B was intraperitoneally infected, receiving 7·5×106trypomastigotes per animal. Each group was divided into 3 subgroups of 6 rats and blood was collected during different periods post-infection (p.i.) as follows: day 5 (A1 and B1), day 15 (A2 and B2) and day 30 PI (A3 and B3). Blood samples were collected by cardiac puncture to estimate red blood cell parameters (RBC),δ-ALA-D activity and serum levels of iron, zinc and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS). Rats in group B showed a significant (P<0·05) reduction of RBC count, haemoglobin concentration and haematocrit at days 5 and 15 p.i. The activity ofδ-ALA-D in blood was significantly (P<0·001) increased at days 15 and 30 p.i.δ-ALA-D activity in blood had a significant (P<0·05) negative correlation with haematocrit (r=−0·61) and haemoglobin (r=−0·70) at day 15 p.i. There was a significant (P<0·05) decrease in serum iron and zinc levels and an increase in TBARS levels (P<0·05) during infection. Theδ-ALA-D activity in blood was negatively correlated with the levels of iron (r=−0·68) and zinc (r=−0·57) on day 30 p.i. It was concluded that the increased activity ofδ-ALA-D in blood might have occurred in response to the anaemia in remission as heme synthesis was enhanced.
Attention bias toward threat is associated with exaggerated fear expression and impaired extinction in PTSD
Authors: Fani N. , Tone E. B. , Phifer J. , Norrholm S. D. , Bradley B. , Ressler K. J. , Kamkwalala A. , Jovanovic T. 
Published: August 2011

BackgroundPost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) develops in a minority of traumatized individuals. Attention biases to threat and abnormalities in fear learning and extinction are processes likely to play a critical role in the creation and/or maintenance of PTSD symptomatology. However, the relationship between these processes has not been established, particularly in highly traumatized populations; understanding their interaction can help inform neural network models and treatments for PTSD.MethodAttention biases were measured using a dot probe task modified for use with our population; task stimuli included photographs of angry facial expressions, which are emotionally salient threat signals. A fear-potentiated startle paradigm was employed to measure atypical physiological response during acquisition and extinction phases of fear learning. These measures were administered to a sample of 64 minority (largely African American), highly traumatized individuals with and without PTSD.ResultsParticipants with PTSD demonstrated attention biases toward threat; this attentional style was associated with exaggerated startle response during fear learning and early and middle phases of extinction, even after accounting for the effects of trauma exposure.ConclusionsOur findings indicate that an attentional bias toward threat is associated with abnormalities in ‘fear load’ in PTSD, providing seminal evidence for an interaction between these two processes. Future research combining these behavioral and psychophysiological techniques with neuroimaging will be useful toward addressing how one process may modulate the other and understanding whether these phenomena are manifestations of dysfunction within a shared neural network. Ultimately, this may serve to inform PTSD treatments specifically designed to correct these atypical processes.
Inequality and culture: geographical differences in the access to cultural enrichment in Italy (1863–1992)
Authors: RASPADORI PAOLO 
Published: August 2011

ABSTRACTBased on the processing of statistical data concerning population and the major cultural infrastructures in the Italian regions from 1863 on, this article aims to demonstrate that the inhabitants of the ‘Mezzogiorno’ have had not only lesser incomes than those of the inhabitants of the Central and Northern regions, but also smaller chances to make use of Italy's cultural assets, considered in a broad sense. In the long run these disadvantages have strengthened the already high social disparities between the Centre, North and South of Italy and help to explain the roots of the dualism between the two parts of the country.
‘The good old days of the Cold War’: arguments used to admit or reject asylum seekers in the Netherlands, 1957–1967
Authors: WALAARDT TYCHO 
Published: August 2011

ABSTRACTThis article examines the arguments used in the Netherlands to admit or exclude asylum seekers during the Cold War era. There is consensus that gaining asylum in the 1960s was not that difficult – especially when compared with current practices – because Cold War migrants were ‘the enemies of our enemy’. By analysing 36 detailed individual case files, this article questions the oft-sung mantra of an unproblematic asylum procedure for these ‘anti-communists’ in the Netherlands. We will see that the restrictive Dutch authorities frequently changed their anti-asylum decisions as a result of interventions from the outside. Outsiders' pleas, underpinned by a variety of arguments, often resulted in admission, but rarely in the attainment of refugee status.
‘The wife's administration of the earnings’? Working-class women and savings in the mid-nineteenth century
Authors: MALTBY JOSEPHINE 
Published: August 2011

ABSTRACTA survey of working-class women's activity as savers offers a new insight into their economic activity, opening questions about the sources inside and outside the family of the money saved by single and married women. It is relevant to a number of issues: the economic activity of married women and its relationship to the legal context in which they were operating – in particular before the Married Women's Property Acts of 1870 and 1882; the extent to which women's employment in the nineteenth century may have been mis-stated and/or under-reported; and the distribution of income within the working-class family. A study of investment patterns within two savings banks, one in Huddersfield and one in Sheffield in the mid-nineteenth century, suggests that working-class women may have been more active as savers than has been reported by earlier studies.
Nouns and verbs in Chintang: children's usage and surrounding adult speech
Authors: STOLL SABINE , BICKEL BALTHASAR , LIEVEN ELENA , PAUDYAL NETRA P. , BANJADE GOMA , BHATTA TOYA N. , GAENSZLE MARTIN , PETTIGREW JUDITH , RAI ICHCHHA PURNA , RAI MANOJ , RAI NOVEL KISHORE 
Published: August 2011

ABSTRACTAnalyzing the development of the noun-to-verb ratio in a longitudinal corpus of four Chintang (Sino-Tibetan) children, we find that up to about age four, children have a significantly higher ratio than adults. Previous cross-linguistic research rules out an explanation of this in terms of a universal noun bias; instead, a likely cause is that Chintang verb morphology is polysynthetic and difficult to learn. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the development of Chintang children's noun-to-verb ratio correlates significantly with the extent to which they show a similar flexibility with verbal morphology to that of the surrounding adults, as measured by morphological paradigm entropy. While this development levels off around age three, children continue to have a higher overall noun-to-verb ratio than adults. A likely explanation lies in the kinds of activities that children are engaged in and that are almost completely separate from adults' activities in this culture.
A neuronally based model of contrast gain adaptation in fly motion vision
Authors: RIVERA-ALVIDREZ ZULEY , LIN ICHI , HIGGINS CHARLES M. 
Published: August 2011

AbstractMotion-sensitive neurons in the visual systems of many species, including humans, exhibit a depression of motion responses immediately after being exposed to rapidly moving images. This motion adaptation has been extensively studied in flies, but a neuronal mechanism that explains the most prominent component of adaptation, which occurs regardless of the direction of motion of the visual stimulus, has yet to be proposed. We identify a neuronal mechanism, namely frequency-dependent synaptic depression, which explains a number of the features of adaptation in mammalian motion-sensitive neurons and use it to model fly motion adaptation. While synaptic depression has been studied mainly in spiking cells, we use the same principles to develop a simple model for depression in a graded synapse. By incorporating this synaptic model into a neuronally based model for elementary motion detection, along with the implementation of a center-surround spatial band-pass filtering stage that mimics the interactions among a subset of visual neurons, we show that we can predict with remarkable success most of the qualitative features of adaptation observed in electrophysiological experiments. Our results support the idea that diverse species share common computational principles for processing visual motion and suggest that such principles could be neuronally implemented in very similar ways.
Searchers vs surveyors in estimating the monetary value of a QALY: resolving a nasty dilemma for NICE
Authors: Baker Rachel , Chilton Sue , Donaldson Cam , Jones-Lee Michael , Lancsar Emily , Mason Helen , Metcalf Hugh , Pennington Mark , Wildman John 
Published: August 2011

AbstractRecently, for many health economics researchers, empirical estimation of the monetary valuation of a quality-adjusted life year (QALY) has become an important endeavour. Different philosophical and practical approaches to this have emerged. On the one hand, there is a view that, with health-care budgets set centrally, decision-making bodies within the system can iterate, from observation of a series of previous decisions, towards the value of a QALY, thus searching for such a value. Alternatively, and more consistent with the approach taken in other public sectors, individual members of the public are surveyed with the aim of directly eliciting a preference-based – also known as a willingness-to-pay-based (WTP-based) – value of a QALY. While the former is based on supply-side factors and the latter on demand, both in fact suffer from informational deficiencies. Sole reliance on either would necessitate an acceptance or accommodation of chronic inefficiencies in health-care resource allocation. On the basis of this observation, this paper makes the case that in order to approach optimal decision making in health-care provision, a framework incorporating and thus, to a degree, reconciling these two approaches is to be preferred.
Nicotinic α7 acetylcholine receptor-mediated currents are not modulated by the tryptophan metabolite kynurenic acid in adult hippocampal interneurons
Authors: Dobelis Peter , Varnell Andrew , Staley Kevin , Cooper Donald 
Published: August 2011

AbstractThe tryptophan metabolite, kynurenic acid (KYNA), is classically known to be an antagonist of ionotropic glutamate receptors. Within the last decade several reports have been published suggesting that KYNA also blocks nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) containing the α7 subunit (α7*). Most of these reports involve either indirect measurements of KYNA effects on α7 nAChR function, or are reports of KYNA effects in complicated in vivo systems. However, a recent report investigating KYNA interactions with α7 nAChRs failed to detect an interaction using direct measurements of α7 nAChRs function. Further, it showed that a KYNA blockade of α7 nAChR stimulated GABA release (an indirect measure of α7 nAChR function) was not due to KYNA blockade of the α7 nAChRs. The current study measured the direct effects of KYNA on α7-containing nAChRs expressed on interneurons in the hilar and CA1 stratum radiatum regions of the mouse hippocampus and on interneurons in the CA1 region of the rat hippocampus. Here we show that KYNA does not block α7* nACHRs using direct patch--clamp recording of α7 currents in adult brain slices.