bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The corpus callosum modulates spindle‐burst activity within homotopic regions of somatosensory cortex in newborn rats
Authors: Marcano‐Reik Amy Jo , Blumberg Mark S. 
Published: October 2008

AbstractThe corpus callosum, a major interhemispheric fiber tract, mediates communication between homotopic regions within the primary somatosensory cortex (S1). Recently, in 1‐ to 6‐day‐old rats, brief bursts of oscillatory activity – called spindle‐bursts (SBs) – were described in cortical somatosensory areas following sensory feedback from sleep‐related myoclonic twitches or specific peripheral stimulation. To determine whether interhemispheric communication via the corpus callosum modulates the expression of SBs during this early period of development, we investigated the spontaneous expression of SBs in unanesthetized 1‐ to 6‐day‐old rats as well as SBs evoked by plantar surface stimulation of the forepaw. We hypothesized that surgically disrupting transcallosal communication (i.e. with callosotomy) or unilateral pharmacological manipulation of S1 activity (e.g. by blocking muscarinic receptors) would alter S1 activity in one or both hemispheres. First, callosotomy doubled the rate of spontaneous, twitch‐related SBs in left and right S1s by reducing the interval between successive SBs. Second, unilateral infusion into the left S1 of the muscarinic receptor antagonist, scopolamine, inhibited SBs in response to right forepaw stimulation; importantly, SBs were now disinhibited in the right S1 to right forepaw stimulation, thus ‘unmasking’ an ipsilateral representation. Subsequent callosotomy reinstated contralateral SB responses in the left S1. Finally, tactile and proprioceptive stimulation produced dissociable neurophysiological S1 responses; specifically, SBs were produced in response to proprioceptive, but not tactile, stimulation. We conclude that the corpus callosum modulates functionally inhibitory interactions between homotopic regions in left and right S1s during the early developmental period when organized neurophysiological activity is first detected in the neocortex.
Insights on Escherichia coli biofilm formation and inhibition from whole‐transcriptome profiling
Authors: Wood Thomas K. 
Published: October 2008

SummaryBiofilms transform independent cells into specialized cell communities. Here are presented some insights into biofilm formation ascertained with the best‐characterized strain, Escherichia coli. Investigations of biofilm formation and inhibition with this strain using whole‐transcriptome profiling coupled to phenotypic assays, in vivo DNA binding studies and isogenic mutants have led to discoveries related to the role of stress, to the role of intra‐ and interspecies cell signalling, to the impact of the environment on cell signalling, to biofilm inhibition by manipulating cell signalling, to the role of toxin/antitoxin genes in biofilm formation, and to the role of small RNAs on biofilm formation and dispersal. Hence, E. coli is an excellent resource for determining paradigms in biofilm formation and biofilm inhibition.
Autoinducers extracted from microbial mats reveal a surprising diversity of N‐acylhomoserine lactones (AHLs) and abundance changes that may relate to diel pH
Authors: Decho Alan W. , Visscher Pieter T. , Ferry John , Kawaguchi Tomohiro , He Lijian , Przekop Kristen M. , Norman R. Sean , Reid R. Pamela 
Published: October 2008

SummaryMicrobial mats are highly structured and diverse communities, and one of the earliest‐known life assemblages. Mat bacteria interact within an environment marked by strong geochemical gradients and fluctuations. We examined natural mat systems for the presence of autoinducers involved in quorum sensing, a form of cell–cell communication. Our results revealed that a diverse array of N‐acylhomoserine lactones (AHLs) including C4‐ to C14‐AHLs, were identified from mat extracts using mass spectrometry (MS), with further confirmation by MS/MS‐collision‐induced dissociation (CID), and additions of external standards. Microelectrode measurements showed that mats exhibited diel pH fluctuations, ranging from alkaline (pH 9.4) during daytime (net photosynthesis) to acidic (pH 6.8) during darkness (net respiration/fermentation). Under laboratory conditions, AHLs having shorter acyl‐chains were degraded within the time frame that daily alkaline pH (> 8.2) conditions exist in mats. Intensive sampling of mats after full day‐ or night‐time incubations revealed that accumulations of extractable shorter‐chain AHLs (e.g. C8‐ and C10‐AHLs) were significantly (P < 0.001) diminished during daytime. Our study offers evidence that stabilities of AHLs under natural conditions may be influenced by the proximal extracellular environment. We further propose that the ancient periodicity of photosynthesis/respiration in mats may potentially drive a mechanism for diel differences in activities of certain autoinducers, and hence bacterial activities mediated through quorum sensing.
Seasonal influence on heat‐resistant proteolytic capacity of Pseudomonas lundensis and Pseudomonas fragi, predominant milk spoilers isolated from Belgian raw milk samples
Authors: Marchand Sophie , Heylen Kim , Messens Winy , Coudijzer Katleen , De Vos Paul , Dewettinck Koen , Herman Lieve , De Block Jan , Heyndrickx Marc 
Published: October 2008

SummaryPsychrotolerant bacteria and their heat‐resistant proteases play a major role in the spoilage of UHT‐processed dairy products. Summer and winter raw milk samples were screened for the presence of such bacteria. One hundred and three proteolytic psychrotolerant bacteria were isolated, characterized by API tests, rep‐PCR fingerprint analysis and evaluated for heat‐resistant protease production. Twenty‐nine strains (representing 79% of the complete collection) were further identified by 16S rRNA gene sequencing, rpoB gene sequencing and DNA–DNA hybridizations. A seasonal inter‐ and intra‐species influence on milk spoilage capacity (e.g. growth rate and/or protease production) was demonstrated. Moreover, this polyphasic approach led to the identification of Pseudomonas fragi and Pseudomonas lundensis (representing 53% of all isolates) as predominant producers of heat‐resistant proteases in raw milk. The role of Pseudomonas fluorescens, historically reported as important milk spoiler, could not unequivocally be established. The use of more reliable identification techniques and further revision of the taxonomy of P. fluorescens will probably result in a different perspective on its role in the milk spoilage issue.
Strong association between insulin resistance in liver and skeletal muscle in non‐diabetic subjects
Authors: Abdul‐Ghani M. A. , Matsuda M. , DeFronzo R. A. 
Published: October 2008

AbstractObjective  To examine the association between insulin resistance in skeletal muscle and liver in non‐diabetic subjects.Research design and methods  A total of 182 Mexican American subjects without Type 2 diabetes underwent an oral glucose tolerance test and euglycaemic–hyperinsulinaemic clamp performed with 3[H]glucose. Insulin sensitivity in skeletal muscle was measured as the insulin‐stimulated rate of total glucose disposal during the insulin clamp divided by steady‐state plasma insulin concentration (TGD/SSPI). Hepatic insulin resistance was measured as the product of basal hepatic glucose production and fasting plasma insulin concentration (HGP × FPI).Results  Hepatic insulin resistance was strongly correlated (r = 0.68, P < 0.0001) with skeletal muscle insulin resistance. Thirty‐eight per cent of subjects had increased insulin resistance in both liver and skeletal muscle, while 39% were insulin sensitive in both skeletal muscle and liver. Twenty‐three per cent of subjects were discordant for muscle and hepatic insulin resistance (P < 0.0001). Subjects with increased skeletal muscle insulin resistance had a higher 2‐h plasma glucose concentration, greater incremental area under the plasma glucose concentration curve, lower fasting plasma insulin concentration and lower rate of basal hepatic glucose production compared with subjects with increased insulin resistance in liver.Conclusion  In non‐diabetic subjects, insulin resistance in skeletal muscle is an important determinant of the fasting and 2‐h plasma glucose concentrations and strongly correlates with hepatic insulin resistance.
AIDS‐associated cryptococcosis: a comparison of epidemiology, clinical features and outcome in the pre‐ and post‐HAART eras. Experience of a single centre in Italy
Authors: Antinori S , Ridolfo AL , Fasan M , Magni C , Galimberti L , Milazzo L , Sollima S , Adorni F , Giuliani G , Galli M , Corbellino M , Parravicini C 
Published: October 2008

ObjectivesTo assess the prevalence, clinical and immunological characteristics, risk factors and survival of patients with AIDS‐related cryptococcosis in the era of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).MethodsAll newly diagnosed cryptococcosis cases identified retrospectively from among a series of AIDS patients hospitalized consecutively at a single institution in Italy in 1985–1996 (pre‐HAART period, n=165) and 1997–2006 (post‐HAART period, n=40) were analysed comparatively.ResultsThe prevalence of cryptococcosis decreased from 4.7% (165/3543) to 2.2% (40/1805) between the pre‐ and post‐HAART periods (P=0.0001). There were no differences in the clinical features or immunological status of the patients between the two cohorts. The variables associated with the occurrence of cryptococcosis in the post‐HAART era were older age (P<0.001), no previous diagnosis of HIV infection (P<0.001) and infection in homosexual males (P=0.004). During the post‐HAART period, immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome associated with cryptococcosis was observed in five patients (19.3%) a median of 15 weeks after the start of HAART. Thirty‐day survival (P=0.045) and overall survival (P=0.0001) were significantly better among patients diagnosed with cryptococcosis in the post‐HAART compared to those diagnosed in the pre‐HAART era.ConclusionsThe AIDS‐associated cryptococcosis observed in Western countries in the HAART era has similar clinical and immunological characteristics to that observed in the pre‐HAART era, but a significantly better outcome.
Factors Contributing to Stress in Parents of Individuals with Autistic Spectrum Disorders
Authors: Tehee Erin , Honan Rita , Hevey David 
Published: October 2008

Background  The study explores the experiences of parents of individuals with autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs), and examines the influences of parent gender and child age on perceived stress, stress and coping, child‐rearing involvement, support and information/education accessed.Methods and Materials  Questionnaires assessed general perceived stress, involvement, stress and coping related to caregiving, social support, and amount of information/education accessed in 23 mothers and 19 fathers of 3‐ to 18‐year‐old individuals with ASDs.Results  When compared with fathers, mothers were significantly more stressed, more involved, and reported higher levels of stress and coping related to caregiving. Differences were found according to child age, regarding helpfulness of support and access to information/education. Parent gender and child age moderated correlations between some variables. Content analyses identified factors contributing to parental stress and its alleviation.Conclusions  The positive relationships between the amount of information accessed and the quality of support received by parents, and between parental stress and involvement vary according to the life stage of the child. Mothers experienced a greater caregiving burden when compared with fathers.
Developing Measures of Job Performance for Support Staff in Housing Services for People with Intellectual Disabilities
Authors: Hatton Chris , Wigham Sarah , Craig Jaime 
Published: October 2008

Background  There is an absence of research concerning the assessment of housing support worker job performance, particularly in the development of job performance measures that reflect the priorities of people with intellectual disabilities and their families.Method  A worker‐oriented job analysis method was used to develop four short job performance measures for direct housing support staff, from the perspective of people with intellectual disabilities (n = 82), family members (n = 38), support staff (n = 122) and service managers (n = 115).Results  All four job performance measures showed adequate internal and test–retest reliability and showed very few associations with staff and resident characteristics, although there were no associations between the job performance measures. The service user and manager‐rated job performance measures showed the widest range of associations with aspects of staff well‐being, service quality and service user choice and satisfaction with life, and show the most promise as short, practical measures of the job performance of direct housing support workers.Conclusions  These methods of developing job performance measures show promise, and further investigation of user‐defined staff competencies is warranted.
Attribution Model of Stigma towards Children with Autism in Hong Kong
Authors: Ling Candy Y. M. , Mak Winnie W. S. , Cheng Janice N. S. 
Published: October 2008

Background  Accounting for the effects of knowledge of and experience with autism, the relationships of cognitive attribution (perceived controllability), emotions (anger and sympathy), as well as helping and punitive behavioural intentions towards children with autism were examined. Based on the attribution model, mediating effects of anger and sympathy on cognitive attributions and behavioural intentions were tested.Materials and Methods  123 frontline staff in educational settings completed a modified version of the Attribution Questionnaire after reading a hypothetical vignette and completing a quiz on autism.Results  Knowledge and experience were only significantly related to punitive behavioural intention towards children with autism. Anger and sympathy mediated the effect between perceived controllability on both helping and punitive behavioural intentions.Conclusions  The intentional responses towards children with autism were strongly related to their emotional reactions. Thus, in addition to educating frontline staff about autism, training them on emotion regulation is equally important in autism stigma reduction.
Restricted ranging behaviour in a high‐density population of urban badgers
Authors: Davison J. , Huck M. , Delahay R. J. , Roper T. J. 
Published: October 2008

AbstractBy studying the responses of different species to urbanization, it is possible to understand the impact of this type of habitat modification and to explore, more generally, the link between variations in the environment and changes in behaviour. We radio collared 17 badgers Meles meles from six social groups in a 1 km2 urban study area in Brighton, UK, where local badger population density was high, and collected data on their ranging behaviour between 2005 and 2007. We aimed to determine how badgers adapt their behaviour to an urban environment and to assess the generality of previously reported differences in the ranging and territorial behaviour of urban and rural badgers. Analysis of habitat preferences and movement patterns suggested that garden habitat was principally used for foraging, while scrub and allotment habitats were important in allowing animals to travel from one part of their range to another. Group and individual home ranges were the smallest so far recorded for badgers (mean 100% minimum convex polygons=9.26 and 4.91 ha, respectively). Individual range size was negatively correlated with the availability of garden habitat, suggesting that the rich food resources provided by gardens enabled ranges to be small. Group ranges were mostly non‐contiguous and there was no evidence of territorial scent marking; rather, activity was mainly restricted to areas in the vicinity of main setts. It is clear that badgers can adapt successfully to urban habitats and that this process affects various aspects of their behaviour. However, our high‐density population of urban badgers displayed patterns of behaviour that differed not only from those of typical rural badgers, but also in some respects from those of a previously studied low‐density urban population. We conclude that generalizations about the effects of urbanization must be made with caution.
Socio‐spatial organization of urban stone martens
Authors: Herr J. , Schley L. , Roper T. J. 
Published: October 2008

AbstractStone martens Martes foina are common occupants of urban environments across continental Europe. We predicted that like other ‘urban adapters’, urban stone martens should exhibit smaller home ranges, more extensive home‐range overlap and higher population densities than their rural counterparts. We radio‐tracked 13 stone martens (10 females, three males) in two towns in southern Luxembourg during a 2‐year period, in order to investigate nocturnal ranging behaviour. All martens maintained stable, year‐round territories almost wholly within the urban perimeter of the respective study towns. Socio‐spatial organization was based on intra‐sexual territoriality. Territories (100% minimum convex polygon) were small in size (males: 112.6±24.8 ha; females: 37.0±22.2 ha) and population densities moderately high (4.7–5.8 adults km−2) by comparison with previous studies of rural populations. We conclude that although stone martens are clearly well adapted to urban conditions, urbanization has surprisingly little impact on their socio‐spatial organization by comparison with its effects on other mesocarnivores. This apparent inflexibility in the spacing patterns of stone martens lends support to the view that spacing in martens (Martes spp.) is a predominantly phylogenetic trait that is under limited environmental influence.
Ecomorphological correlates of craniodental variation in bears and paleobiological implications for extinct taxa: an approach based on geometric morphometrics
Authors: Figueirido B. , Palmqvist P. , Pérez‐Claros J. A. 
Published: October 2008

AbstractRelative warp analyses of landmarks describing cranial and mandibular shape are used for investigating patterns of morphological variation among extant bears (Mammalia, Carnivora, Ursidae) indicative of diet and feeding behavior. These patterns are used for deriving inferences about the autecology of two extinct species previously assumed to have had different dietary preferences, the North American giant, short‐faced bear Arctodus simus and the Eurasian cave bear Ursus spelaeus. Results reveal a set of shared craniodental traits among the herbivorous bears, including short and vaulted skulls with well‐developed zygomatic arches, lateralized orbits and small canines, concave jaws with a highly positioned condyle, large moment arms for the temporalis and masseter muscles, and long cheek teeth. In contrast, those bears that consume animal resources have long skulls with small zygomatic arches, frontalized orbits and well‐developed canines, and long jaws with a deep mandibular symphysis, low muscle leverages, a condyle situated at the level of the tooth row and reduced cheek teeth. The craniodental morphology of omnivorous bears is intermediate between those of faunivores and herbivores. This is also the case of the short‐faced bear and the cave bear, which suggests that previous reconstructions of the feeding ecology of these extinct species (highly carnivorous for A. simus and herbivorous for U. spelaeus) should be revised.
Effect of maltodextrin addition on moisture sorption properties of khoa
Authors: AHMAD NADEEM , SINGH R R B , SINGH A K , PATEL A A , PATIL G R 
Published: October 2008

Khoa is a popular traditional Indian milk product. It is used as the base material for preparation of variety of popular sweetmeats. The shelf life of this product is limited due to its high water activity (> 0.96). In the present investigation, an attempt was made to lower the aw of khoa (25.62% moisture, 31.25% fat, 18.21% protein, 3.65% total ash and 21.29% lactose) by using maltodextrin (DE‐16) as a humectant (concentration: 0, 2, 5 and 10%; wt/wt). It was observed that the desorption curves of the product exhibited a sigmoid shape corresponding to type II, typical of many foods. At higher concentrations of maltodextrin, the isotherms shifted to the left compared to control. Among the several models chosen to test the fitness of sorption data, Guggenheim, Anderson and De Boer (GAB) and modified Mizrahi models showed the best fit as indicated by the smallest percentage root mean square values. The monolayer moisture content increased with increasing maltodextrin level, the range being 2.85–3.29 and 3.03–3.81 g/100 g solids for the two models, respectively. Caurie's slope also increased from 0.38 to 0.44, whereas nonfreezable water decreased from 4.98 to 4.01% as the maltodextrin level increased from 2 to 10%. Other critical water sorption parameters such as number of adsorbed monolayers, density of sorbed water and surface area of sorption were also obtained.
When is a search not a search? A comparison of searching the amed complementary health database via EBSCOhost, OVID and DIALOG
Authors: Younger Paula , Boddy Kate 
Published: October 2008

AbstractBackground:  The researchers involved in this study work at Exeter Health library and at the Complementary Medicine Unit, Peninsula School of Medicine and Dentistry (PCMD). Within this collaborative environment it is possible to access the electronic resources of three institutions. This includes access to amed and other databases using different interfaces.Objectives:  The aim of this study was to investigate whether searching different interfaces to the amed allied health and complementary medicine database produced the same results when using identical search terms.Methods:  The following Internet‐based amed interfaces were searched: DIALOG DataStar; EBSCOhost and OVID SP_UI01.00.02. Search results from all three databases were saved in an endnote database to facilitate analysis. A checklist was also compiled comparing interface features.Results:  In our initial search, DIALOG returned 29 hits, OVID 14 and Ebsco 8. If we assume that DIALOG returned 100% of potential hits, OVID initially returned only 48% of hits and EBSCOhost only 28%. In our search, a researcher using the Ebsco interface to carry out a simple search on amed would miss over 70% of possible search hits. Subsequent EBSCOhost searches on different subjects failed to find between 21 and 86% of the hits retrieved using the same keywords via DIALOG DataStar. In two cases, the simple EBSCOhost search failed to find any of the results found via DIALOG DataStar.Conclusions:  Depending on the interface, the number of hits retrieved from the same database with the same simple search can vary dramatically. Some simple searches fail to retrieve a substantial percentage of citations. This may result in an uninformed literature review, research funding application or treatment intervention. In addition to ensuring that keywords, spelling and medical subject headings (MeSH) accurately reflect the nature of the search, database users should include wildcards and truncation and adapt their search strategy substantially to retrieve the maximum number of appropriate citations possible.Librarians should be aware of these differences when making purchasing decisions, carrying out literature searches and planning user education.