bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Degradation of chloroaromatics: structure and catalytic activities of wild‐type chlorocatechol 2,3‐dioxygenases and modified ones
Authors: Schmidt Eberhard , Mandt Christian , janssen Dick B. , Pieper Dietmar H. , Reineke Walter 
Published: July 2012

SummaryTo improve the efficiency and to investigate the molecular determinants that direct substrate specificity of chlorocatechol 2,3‐dioxygenase CbzEGJ31, several mutant enzymes were constructed. Loci for substitutions of amino acids were selected by sequence comparisons as well as by homology modelling of known chlorocatechol 2,3‐dioxygenases (CbzEBASF, CbzESK1 and CbzE16‐6A). Activity measurements with various catechols showed that most of the modifications influenced activity only to a minor degree. The amino acid at position 154 seems to be located at a non‐important position in the enzyme with minor extension into the substrate tunnel. Similarly, the change of related amino acids such as D95E and Y223F did not influence the catalysis since both residues are far away from the catalytic centre and the substrate tunnel. Even the modification of isoleucine to threonine in position 310, located at the outer substrate tunnel, showed a significant alteration of activities. Position 196 seems to be of higher relevance since the modification of valine to alanine, i.e. the reduction of the side‐chain, produced much alteration. The amino acid is located at the interface of inner to outer substrate tunnel. CbzEV196A showed high relative kcat for 3‐chlorocatechol. A pronounced increase in activity for 3‐chlorocatechol resulted by the change from alanine to valine and from aspartic acid to glycine laying in the outer substrate tunnel at position 211 and 212 respectively.
Distribution and in situ abundance of sulfate‐reducing bacteria in diverse marine hydrocarbon seep sediments
Authors: Kleindienst Sara , Ramette Alban , Amann Rudolf , Knittel Katrin 
Published: July 2012

SummaryMarine gas and hydrocarbon seeps are hot spots of sulfate reduction which is fuelled by methane, other short‐chain alkanes or a complex mixture of hydrocarbons. In this study, we investigated the global distribution and abundance of sulfate‐reducing bacteria (SRB) in eight gas and hydrocarbon seeps by catalysed reporter deposition fluorescence in situ hybridization (CARD‐FISH). The majority of Deltaproteobacteria were assigned to specific SRB groups, i.e. 83 ± 14% at gas seeps and 61 ± 35% at hydrocarbon seeps, indicating that the probe set used was sufficient for classification of marine SRB. Statistical analysis showed that SRB abundance and distribution were significantly influenced by habitat type and sediment depth. Members of the Desulfosarcina/Desulfococcus (DSS) clade strongly dominated all sites. Our data indicated the presence of many diverse and highly specialized DSS species of low abundance rather than a single abundant subgroup. In addition, SEEP‐SRB2, an uncultured deep‐branching deltaproteobacterial group, was ubiquitously found in high abundances at all sites. SEEP‐SRB2 members occurred either in a novel association with methanotrophic archaea in shell‐type ANME‐2/SEEP‐SRB2 consortia, in association with ANME‐1 archaea in Black Sea microbial mats or as single cells. Two other uncultured groups, SEEP‐SRB3 and SEEP‐SRB4, were preferentially detected in surface sediments from mud volcanoes.
Defining the impact of vascular risk factors on erectile function recovery after radical prostatectomy
Authors: Teloken Patrick E. , Nelson Christian J. , Karellas Michael , Stasi Jason , Eastham James , Scardino Peter T. , Mulhall John P. 
Published: July 2012

What's known on the subject? and What does the study add?
Erectile function recovery after radical prostatectomy is affected by surgical technique and patient factors. Age and preoperative erectile function are the 2 patient factors that have been consistently shown to impact postoperative erectile function.
The presence of vascular risk factors preoperatively seems to negatively impact erectile function recovery after radical prostatectomy independently from age, preoperative erectile function and surgical technique.
Objective
To examine whether vascular risk factors (VRFs) affect erectile function (EF) recovery after radical prostatectomy (RP).
Patients and Methods
From our prospective database we identified patients with clinically localised prostate cancer who had undergone RP and had preoperative information on EF and VRFs (hypertension, hypercholesterolaemia, diabetes mellitus, coronary artery disease [CAD], and cigarette smoking), surgeon‐graded nerve‐sparing status, and EF data collected between 24 and 30 months after RP.
Results
In all, 984 patients were included in the analyses. The frequency of the VRFs was as follows: hypertension (38%), hypercholesterolaemia (36%), diabetes mellitus (7%), CAD (5%), and cigarette smoking (37%).
On univariate analysis, EF between 24 and 30 months was associated with age (r = 0.37, P < 0.001), EF before RP (r = 0.41, P < 0.001), NSS (r = 0.35, P < 0.001), and VRFs (0–2 vs >3 VRFs; r = 0.15, P = 0.003).
On multivariable analysis all variables remained statistically significant, and accounted for 28% of the total variance in EF between 24 and 30 months after RP.
Conclusions
The presence of VRFs seems to adversely affect EF recovery after RP independently of other factors.
This observation might be useful for improving patient counselling before treatment and to support the development of new treatment strategies for erectile dysfunction after RP.
The role of local anaesthetics in premature ejaculation
Authors: Wyllie Michael G. , Powell Julia A. 
Published: July 2012

What's known on the subject? and What does the study add?It is now accepted that both biological and psychological factors are important in the aetiology of premature ejaculation (PE). Of particular interest is the correlation between ejaculatory latency and penile sensory thresholds. Men with PE appear to have a heightened sensory response to penile stimulation and also generally exhibit other abnormal reflex pathways within the ejaculatory process, suggesting a link between penile hypersensitivity and PE. Considering these sensory differences, drugs that selectively produce some degree of penile desensitization or act within the afferent‐efferent reflex could delay ejaculatory latency without adversely affecting the sensation of ejaculation.This review evaluates published clinical trial data for local anaesthetics used off‐label in PE as well as novel topical agents in development. New analyses of the phase III data are presented for topical eutectic mixture for PE (TEMPE, also known as PSD502, Plethora Solutions Plc., London), a proprietary formulation of lidocaine and prilocaine in a metered‐dose aerosol delivery system.OBJECTIVES
To review the published clinical trial data for local anaesthetics used off‐label in premature ejaculation (PE), as well as novel topical agents in development.
To evaluate the safety and efficacy of topical eutectic mixture for PE (TEMPE) in subjects with PE and their sexual partners using all available phase III data.
RESULTS
Topical treatments can be applied as needed and systemic side‐effects are unlikely. However, existing off‐label topical treatments for PE have several disadvantages: they can be messy, interfere with spontaneity, and could cause numbness in the man or his partner.
Several novel topical agents are in development for the treatment of PE. TEMPE appears to be closest to approval.
TEMPE, applied 5 min before sexual intercourse (539 subjects) resulted in an increase in the geometric mean intra‐vaginal ejaculatory time (IELT) from a baseline of 0.58 min to 3.17 min during 3 months of double‐blind treatment; a 3.3‐fold delay in ejaculation compared with placebo (P < 0.001).
IELT continued to increase further with continued use of TEMPE throughout the double‐blind and open‐label phases.
Treatment with TEMPE also resulted in marked improvements in subjective measures, e.g. ejaculatory control, sexual satisfaction and distress, with little or no evidence of systemic side‐effects and minimal desensitization of the genitalia in subjects or their sexual partners.
CONCLUSIONS
The use of a topical agent could be an acceptable first‐line option for PE, given the favourable risk/benefit ratio of these products.
Topical aerosol application of TEMPE may provide safe, effective, on‐demand treatment for PE.
Dutasteride, who is it more effective for? Second to fourth digit ratio and the relationship with prostate volume reduction by dutasteride treatment
Authors: Kim Tae Beom , Oh Jin Kyu , Kim Khae Hawn , Jung Han , Yoon Sang Jin , Lee Min Sung , Kim Soo Woong 
Published: July 2012

Study Type – Prognosis (cohort)Level of Evidence 2bWhat's known on the subject? and What does the study add?The second to fourth digit ratio (hereafter the digit ratio) of the right hand is related to the activity of the androgen receptor. Five α‐reductase inhibitor (5ARI) reduces the prostate volume of patients with BPH. In terms of prostate volume reduction, large‐scale placebo‐controlled studies show that patients with BPH do not always respond well to 5ARI treatment.Patients with a higher digit ratio respond well to dutasteride treatment compared to those with a lower digit ratio. These results suggest that the digit ratio might be a predictor of the response to dutasteride treatment.OBJECTIVE
To investigate the relationship between second to fourth digit ratio (hereafter the digit ratio) and prostate volume reduction by dutasteride treatment.
PATIENTS AND METHODS
A total of 142 men aged ≥40 years with a clinical diagnosis of benign prostatic hyperplasia and an enlarged prostate (prostate volume ≥30 mL) were prospectively enrolled.
Before prostate‐specific antigen (PSA) level determination and transrectal ultrasonography (TRUS), the lengths of the second and fourth digits of the right hand were measured by an investigator using a digital vernier calliper.
Using TRUS, pre‐ and post‐treatment prostate volume (PV1 and PV2) were measured by an uroradiologist who was unaware of finger lengths. We investigated the change in prostate volume and PSA level at least 6 months after the initiation of dutasteride therapy.
RESULTS
When the patients were divided into two groups according to digit ratio (A: digit ratio <0.95, n= 71; B: digit ratio ≥0.95, n= 71), there was a greater reduction in prostate volume in group B compared to group A (PV2–PV1: −9.4 mL vs −13.2 mL, P= 0.042; [PV2–PV1]/PV1: −17.5% vs −24.5%, P= 0.027; [PV2–PV1]/duration: −1.1 mL/month vs −1.6 mL/month, P= 0.041; [PV2–PV1]/PV1/duration: −2.0%/month vs −3.0%/month, P= 0.016).
Significant negative correlations were found between the digit ratio and reduction rate ([PV2–PV1]/duration: r=−0.165, P= 0.049; [PV2–PV1]/PV1/duration: r=−0.191, P= 0.023).
CONCLUSIONS
Patients with higher digit ratios respond well to dutasteride treatment.
The results obtained in the present study suggest that the digit ratio is a predictor of the response to dutasteride treatment.
Monoclonal tobacco cell lines with enhanced recombinant protein yields can be generated from heterogeneous cell suspension cultures by flow sorting
Authors: Kirchhoff Janina , Raven Nicole , Boes Alexander , Roberts Jean L. , Russell Sean , Treffenfeldt Wiltrud , Fischer Rainer , Schinkel Helga , Schiermeyer Andreas , Schillberg Stefan 
Published: July 2012

SummaryPlant cell suspension cultures can be used for the production of recombinant pharmaceutical proteins, but their potential is limited by modest production levels that may be unstable over long culture periods, reflecting initial culture heterogeneity and subsequent genetic and epigenetic changes. We used flow sorting to generate highly productive monoclonal cell lines from a heterogeneous population of tobacco BY‐2 cells expressing the human antibody M12 by selecting the co‐expressed fluorescent marker protein DsRed located on the same T‐DNA. Separation yielded ∼35% wells containing single protoplasts and ∼15% wells with monoclonal microcolonies that formed within 2 weeks. Thus, enriching the population of fluorescent cells from initially 24% to 90–96% in the six monoclonal lines resulted in an up to 13‐fold increase in M12 production that remained stable for 10–12 months. This is the first straightforward procedure allowing the generation of monoclonal plant cell suspension cultures by flow sorting, greatly increasing the potential of plant cells as an economical platform for the manufacture of recombinant pharmaceutical proteins.
Reforming Land and Water Rights in South Africa
Authors: Woodhouse Philip 
Published: July 2012

ABSTRACTRedress of historical injustice in access to land provided a mobilizing force for the overthrow of the apartheid government in South Africa. Inequality of access to water resources marks South Africa's history even more profoundly than inequality of access to land. Yet in South Africa, post‐apartheid legislative reform relating to land and water has followed largely separate, if parallel, paths. This article traces the development and current status of water reforms in the Inkomati Water Management Area, where water use is dominated by established commercial agriculture and forestry, by important environmental interests, including the Kruger National Park, and by demands for improved access to water from a black population of around 1.5 million living in former Bantustan areas. It indicates that in practice water and land reform are interdependent, but, although both have become more closely linked within local political and economic arenas, they remain largely disconnected and disabled by unresolved tensions within their separate policy processes. The article argues that the commoditized nature of land and water use within the established patterns of commercial agriculture sets constraints on what redistributive land and water reform can deliver to those historically dispossessed. In particular, increasing recourse to ‘strategic partnerships’ between African community landowners and commercial agribusiness as a means of maintaining the productivity of commercial farmland poses questions about the control and beneficial use of new forms of communal property.
DETERMINANTS AND DYNAMICS OF SCHOOLING AND CHILD LABOUR IN BOLIVIA
Authors: Grigoli Francesco , Sbrana Giacomo 
Published: July 2012

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the determinants of primary school enrolment, attendance, and child labour in Bolivia from 1999 to 2007, and attempts to analyse the interactions among these decisions over time. Although enrolment rates show a significant improvement, a high proportion of children do not attend school. The empirical results reveal that the increase in enrolment is led by indigenous children and those living in urban areas. Moreover, contrary to common belief, being extremely poor and indigenous are the main determinants of school attendance. Finally, although extremely poor children increased their school attendance, there was no reduction in child labour, which remains a relevant issue in Bolivia.
An Assessment of the Italian 2007 Complementary Social Security Reform: A Simulation Approach
Authors: Corsini Lorenzo , Pacini Pier Mario , Spataro Luca 
Published: July 2012

AbstractIn this paper we aim at assessing the outcomes of the 2007 Italian reform of the complementary social security scheme and at identifying the determinants behind them. The reform provided workers with relevant incentives to switch the investment of about 7 per cent of their gross yearly wages from a firm‐managed scheme (which took the form of a termination indemnity payment, the Trattamento di Fine Rapporto scheme) to an external pension fund. We provide a theoretical framework to model the workers' problem of choosing between these two different forms of complementary social security schemes and we then perform an agent‐based simulation taking into account all the details of the reform. Differently from previous contributions, we stress the impact that the investment decision has on the financial health of firms and, consequently, on workers' employment stability. Our simulations are able to replicate the Italian data in terms of adhesion rates to complementary social security and also to identify some of the key determinants of that outcome, such as fiscal incentives, individual preferences, the working of both the Italian labour and the financial markets and the productive structure of the Italian economy.
Exchange Rate Pass‐through to Trade Prices: The Role of Nonlinearities and Asymmetries*
Authors: Bussiere Matthieu 
Published: July 2012

AbstractA standard assumption in the empirical literature is that exchange rate pass‐through is both linear and symmetric. This study tests these assumptions for export and import prices in the G7 economies. It focuses on non‐linearities in the reaction of profit margins to exchange rate movements, which may arise from the presence of price rigidities and switching costs. Nonlinearities are characterized by augmenting a standard linear model with polynomial functions of the exchange rate and with interactive dummy variables. The results suggest that nonlinearities and especially asymmetries cannot be ignored, although their magnitude varies noticeably across countries.
UNDER DIVINE WINGS: FORMS OF IDEOLOGICAL AND TERRITORIAL DOMINATION DURING THE IBERIAN IRON AGE
Authors: REYERO SUSANA GONZÁLEZ 
Published: July 2012

SummaryThis article explores the ways in which the Iberian communities of the Iron Age developed a model of extension and legitimization for their social hierarchies. By analysing the testimonies of the ideational realm and the territorial occupation of the Iberian populations, it is argued that the representation of a winged goddess was used by certain families to legitimize the control and possession of natural resources. Thus, the contextual analysis of this goddess can explain a territorial domination established in the southern sub‐plateau of the Iberian Peninsula. A Mediterranean model of the goddess is transformed by combining traditional and foreign elements to create a unique synthesis. What draws our attention, though, is how this new being was eventually integrated into the changes that took place in local populations, which established new constructions of space and new relationships of patronage. New practices appear, such as the persistence of ancient forms of pottery and a symbolic opposition to imported objects. In the following pages, I will identify the underlying process as a territorial division conducted by certain settlements as they explored a broader spatial control. I will explore one of these territories and the ideology employed to implement this form of domination.
CHEST BURIAL: A MIDDLE ANGLO‐SAXON FUNERARY RITE FROM NORTHERN ENGLAND
Authors: CRAIG‐ATKINS ELIZABETH 
Published: July 2012

SummaryChest burials, in which the body is interred in a wooden chest with a hinged lid, are one of the most characteristic funerary practices of the middle Anglo‐Saxon period in northern England. The majority are dated to between the seventh and ninth centuries, and are found at 19 different sites located within the contemporary early medieval kingdom of Northumbria. The collation of a corpus of chest burials, and examination of their form, context and the identities of the individuals they were afforded to, have revealed that these interments seem to have been made in reused pieces of domestic furniture and provided to both sexes, but rarely afforded to infants or young children. The individuals buried in chests also shared an extremely physically active lifestyle and in some cases met a violent death, further distinguishing them from their contemporaries.
Estimating the Relationship between Alcohol Policies and Criminal Violence and Victimization
Authors: Markowitz Sara , Poe-Yamagata Eileen , Andrews Tracy , Deb Partha , Nesson Erik , Florence Curtis , Barnett Sarah Beth L. 
Published: July 2012

Abstract
Violence is one of the leading social problems in both Europe and the United States. The development of appropriate public policies to curtail violence is confounded by the relationship between alcohol and violence. In this article, we estimate the propensity of alcohol control policies to reduce the perpetration and victimization of criminal violence. We measure violence with data on individual-level victimizations from the U.S. National Crime Victimization Survey. We examine the effects of a number of different alcohol control policies in reducing violent crime. These policies include the retail price of beer, drunk driving laws and penalties, keg laws and serving and selling laws. We find some evidence of a negative relationship between alcohol prices and the probability of alcohol- or drug-related assault victimizations. However, we find no strong evidence that other alcohol policies are effective in reducing violent crimes.
Disability insurance risks: The Argentinian case
Authors: Belliard Matías , Grushka Carlos , De Biase Marcelo 
Published: July 2012

AbstractThis article analyses the risk of disability facing workers who contribute to the Argentinian Integrated Social Security System (Sistema Integrado Previsional Argentino— SIPA). Using administrative records as our source of data for the period 2000‐2006, the results indicate that 1.46 workers per 1,000 became disabled annually during that period. The risk of disability rates were higher for men than for women, but increased with age for both sexes. The risk of disability rates have also been broken down by pathology and social security scheme, taking the effects of age and sex into account. To conclude, international comparisons are presented.
The RSA (Revenu de solidarité active) and back‐to‐work incentives in France
Authors: Anne Denis , L'Horty Yannick 
Published: July 2012

AbstractUsing an inventory of local and/or non‐statutory transfers (droits connexes) in 13 French towns and cities, the article first measures the gains from returning to work for recipients of national, statutory means‐tested benefits (Revenu minimum d'insertion— RMI, and Allocation parent isolé— API) by type of household before 2009. The reforms of national, statutory benefits carried out during the 2000s, especially those affecting the working tax credit (Prime pour l'emploi— PPE), failed to ensure that the recipients of means‐tested benefits always stood to gain financially from returning to work. The effects of the reforms were offset by the effects of other measures. The article then simulates the effects of the introduction of the Revenu de solidarité active (RSA) in place of the RMI in 2009, and takes into account the way that local and/or non‐statutory transfers are modified by increases in national, statutory transfers. We observe that the RSA eliminates the financial disincentives to returning to work for almost all localities and types of household. The article shows that the marginal tax rate of 38 per cent chosen by the government is very close to the upper limit compatible with a back‐to‐work incentive.