bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Molecular basis of dimethylglycine dehydrogenase deficiency associated with pathogenic variant H109R
Authors: McAndrew R. P. , Vockley J. , Kim J.‐J. P. 
Published: October 2008

SummaryDimethylglycine dehydrogenase (DMGDH) is a mitochondrial matrix flavoprotein that catalyses the demethylation of dimethylglycine to form sarcosine, accompanied by the reduction of the covalently bound FAD cofactor. Electron‐transfer flavoprotein reoxidizes the reduced flavin and transfers reducing equivalents to the main mitochondrial respiratory chain through the enzyme ETF‐ubiquinone oxidoreductase. DMGDH plays a prominent role in choline and 1‐carbon metabolism. We have expressed the mature form of human DMGDH and the H109R variant identified in a DMGDH‐deficient patient as N‐terminally His6‐tagged proteins in E. coli. The enzymes were purified to homogeneity by nickel affinity and anion exchange chromatography. The presence of FAD in the wild‐type enzyme was confirmed by spectrophotometric analysis. The H109R variant, however, had only 47% of the wild‐type level of bound flavin as expressed in E. coli, indicating its reduced affinity for FAD As previously described for rat enzyme studies, the wild‐type human enzyme exhibited two Km values for N,N‐dimethylglycine (Km1 = 0.039 ± 0.010 mmol/L and Km2 = 15.4 ± 1.2 mmol/L). The addition of 4 μmol/L tetrahydrofolate resulted in a slight decrease in specific activity and a substantial decrease in Km2 (1.10 ± 0.55 mmol/L). The flavinated H109R variant protein exhibited a 27‐fold decrease in specific activity and a 65‐fold increase in Km, explaining its pathogenicity. Additionally, the current expression system represents a significant improvement over a previously described rat DMGDH expression system and will enhance our ability to further study this important metabolic enzyme.
How Parents Search, Interpret, and Evaluate Genetic Information Obtained from the Internet
Authors: Roche Myra I. , Skinner Debra 
Published: October 2008

AbstractThis study describes how parents of a child referred for genetic services searched the Internet for information, summarizes how they interpreted and evaluated the information they obtained, and identifies barriers that they encountered. Audio‐taped interviews were conducted with 100 ethnically diverse families referred to a pediatric genetics clinic. After transcription, coded text was entered into a software program (QSR N6) for searching and data retrieval. Matrices were created to systematically categorize and compare families’ Internet use. Eighty‐three percent of families obtained Internet information about the diagnosis, the clinic visit, and/or treatment and services. Those not conducting searches lacked access, Internet experience, or a diagnostic term and had lower incomes and less education, regardless of ethnicity. Families sought information in preparation for the clinic visit but barriers to obtaining and interpreting relevant information were common. Parents’ Internet searching experiences illustrate common barriers to obtaining and understanding genetic information. Identifying them can help genetic counselors facilitate parents’ searches for relevant information.
Influence of air pollution on the mountain forests along the Tateyama–Kurobe Alpine route
Authors: Kume Atsushi , Numata Satoshi , Watanabe Koichi , Honoki Hideharu , Nakajima Haruki , Ishida Megumi 
Published: October 2008

AbstractThe effects of air pollution on the growth of mountain trees were investigated at Buna‐daira (1,180 m a.s.l.), about half the way up Mt. Tateyama, located in Japan. Every year, about 1 million tourists are transported by highland buses through the Tateyama–Kurobe Alpine route. Since the route opened in 1971, some tree species along the road have declined and have been blighted, suggesting that bus exhaust was the cause. However, the level of regional and long‐range transboundary air pollution has also increased significantly over the last few decades. The atmospheric NO2 concentration at the roadside in the forest was highly correlated with the traffic density of buses and penetration of the exhaust into the forest was detected. However, the maximum average NO2 concentration was lower than 3.5 ppbv during the peak traffic period in the year. At Buna‐daira, the total stem cross‐sectional area at breast height (BA) of the forest was nearly unchanged from 1999 to 2006, but the BA of Fagus crenata decreased 10% and that of Cryptomeria japonica increased 6%. Neither tree growth nor tree death was significantly correlated with distance from the road. The cause of the decline of F. crenata could not be attributed to the effects of road, i.e., air pollution emitted from the buses or edge effects of the road. This area was more affected by regional, long‐range transport of air pollution (O3, SO2, etc.). The average atmospheric O3 concentration in autumn was higher than 40 ppbv and the recent increase in the O3 concentration may be an important factor of F. crenata decline through the changes in the interspecific relationships between F. crenata and C. japonica, O3 sensitive and tolerant species, respectively.
Preparation of Pectin–ZnO Nanocomposite
Authors: Shi L , Gunasekaran S 
Published: October 2008

Abstract
Pectin–ZnO nanocomposite was prepared in the aqueous solution condition at room temperature. The Fourier transform infrared, X-ray diffraction, and transmission electron microscope (TEM) measurements confirmed the nanoscaled structure of pectin–ZnO composite. According to the TEM observation, the average composite granules size was about 150 nm and the embedded ZnO nanoparticles were uniform with an average diameter of 70 nm.
Fibrils of γ‐Oryzanol + β‐Sitosterol in Edible Oil Organogels
Authors: Bot Arjen , den Adel Ruud , Roijers Eli C. 
Published: October 2008

AbstractMixtures of γ‐oryzanol and β‐sitosterol are able to form transparent organogels in edible oils. Small‐angle X‐ray scattering was used to elucidate the microstructure of the building blocks of these organogels in sunflower oil. It was found that the plant sterol(ester)s form hollow tubes with a diameter of 7.2 ± 0.1 nm. Tubes prepared with γ‐oryzanol‐rich structurant show the least bundle aggregation, and can be supercooled during formation most easily. The tubes melt at elevated temperatures, in agreement with the loss of structuring capacity as observed in earlier experiments.
Tumor necrosis factor receptor 1 induces interleukin‐6 upregulation through NF‐kappaB in a rat neuropathic pain model
Authors: Lee Kyung‐Min , Jeon Sang‐Min , Cho Hee‐Jung 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTPeripheral nerve injury resulting in neuropathic pain induces the upregulation of interleukin (IL)‐6 and tumor necrosis factor‐α, which binds to tumor necrosis factor receptor 1 (TNFR1) and induces NF‐κB and p38 MAPK activation in the spinal cord and dorsal root ganglia (DRG). We here investigated whether TNFR1 regulates IL‐6 expression through NF‐κB or p38 MAPK activations in the spinal cord and DRG in rats with chronic constriction injury (CCI) of the sciatic nerve. Intrathecal treatment with a TNFR1 antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) significantly inhibited CCI‐elevated IKKs phosphorylation, IkB‐α degradation, the nuclear translocation, phosphorylation, and DNA‐binding activity of NF‐κB, p38 MAPK activation, and IL‐6 mRNA and protein expression in the spinal cord and DRG. Interestingly, CCI remarkably elevated IKKα and p65 phosphorylations in the spinal cord rather than in the DRG. In addition, NF‐κB decoy, but not p38 MAPK inhibitor, SB203580 reduced CCI‐elevated IL‐6 expression in the spinal cord and DRG. Therefore, these data suggest that TNFR1 induces IL‐6 upregulation and neuropathic pain through NF‐κB, but not p38 MAPK activation in the spinal cord and DRG and that the NF‐κB/IL‐6 pathways in the DRG may be less dependent on TNFR1 than the spinal cord pathway.
Congenital hypothyroidism alters formalin‐induced pain response in neonatal rats
Authors: Rohani Mohammad H. , Akbari Zahra , Behzadi Gila 
Published: October 2008

AbstractThe present study designed to investigate the development of nociceptive circuits upon formalin‐induced pain in congenital hypothyroid pups during the first three postnatal weeks. Following induction of maternal hypothyroidism, the offspring pups were received right intraplantar injection of different formalin concentrations at 7, 15, and 23 days of age. Significant reduction in weight gain was observed in PTU‐treated offspring from postnatal days 15 up to 23 (P < 0.001). No difference was observed between normal and hypothyroid PND7 pups in total pain intensity score with 0.3% solution of formalin. However, normal pups showed higher total pain score (P < 0.01) during the first phase of 1% formalin injection. PND15 normal pups showed a biphasic pain response with a concentration of 2% formalin injection. Obvious persistence of higher pain intensity was observed in hypothyroid pups after interphase through the 2nd phase (P2) and recovery phase (P3), (P < 0.001). PND23 hypothyroid rats showed slightly biphasic pattern of pain behavior with persistence of lower pain intensity during P2 (2.5% formalin, P < 0.05), (10% formalin, P < 0.001) without any further decline during P3 (P < 0.01, P < 0.001 respectively). In general, the number of flexes + shakes in hypothyroid pups was higher than normal pups in both the early and late phases of the test. Licking activity was intensively expressed only in normal pups during phase 2 at the age of 23 days. In contrast to acute pain, hypothyroidism results to pain hypersensitivity in two weeks old rats whereas weaned rats were hyposensitive to tonic nociceptive stimulation without showing the subsequent recovery phase.
Time‐course of blood–brain barrier disruption in senescence‐accelerated mouse prone 8 (SAMP8) mice
Authors: del Valle Jaume , Duran‐Vilaregut Joaquim , Manich Gemma , Camins Antoni , Pallàs Mercè , Vilaplana Jordi , Pelegrí Carme 
Published: October 2008

AbstractSenescence of the cerebrovascular system and an abnormal function of the blood–brain barrier have been related with Alzheimer's disease. We studied here the time‐course of blood–brain barrier disruption in senescence‐accelerated mouse prone 8 (SAMP8) mice, which is a murine model of senescence and is also considered a model of Alzheimer's disease. We used a previously described method that allows evaluating blood–brain barrier integrity by observing Evans blue extravasation from brain blood vessels. Three brain regions (cortex, hippocampus and hippocampal fissure) of SAMP8 brains were analyzed at 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 months of age. Moreover, genetically related senescence‐accelerated mouse resistant 1 (SAMR1) and ICR‐CD1 mice were studied. Results indicate that Evans blue permeability in SAMP8 and SAMR1 increases from 6 to 15 months in the three studied regions. At 15 months of age, SAMP8 and SAMR1 mice showed higher Evans blue extravasation in CA1 and Fissure than ICR‐CD1 mice. Further studies are required to understand the senescence process in SAMR1 mice, as blood–brain barrier alterations in old age have unexpectedly been observed. On the other hand, as blood–brain barrier permeability in SAMP8 mice increases with age, blood–brain barrier alterations may contribute to the cerebral pathology observed in this strain.
Putative Persian perversities: Indian Buddhist condemnations of Zoroastrian close-kin marriage in context
Authors: Silk Jonathan A 
Published: October 2008

AbstractAncient and medieval sources from Greece to Korea speak of the morally reprehensible habits of the Persians, who engage in close-kin marriage. Indian Buddhist texts also preserve similar ideas. One interesting passage in a narrative text makes use of this motif in a particularly interesting way, thereby indicating the character who appeals to the trope as ethically beyond the pale. The present paper explores the background of this common depiction of Persian marriage customs for its own intrinsic interest, and as a means to explicate the passage in question.
Theragāthā: The Elders' Verses: a review article
Authors: Wright J C 
Published: October 2008

AbstractThe Theragāthā anthology of “Elders' Verses” is one of the canonical Pali verse texts for which K. R. Norman provided much-needed fundamentally revised English translations, with full-scale philological annotation that in most respects supersedes all that had gone before. He has now again revised these in the light of the progress that has been made over nearly forty years since their original publication. What emerges in Theragāthā is in large measure a delightful collection of character sketches of ascetic types, labelled with captions that contrast exemplary monks such as “Mr. Well-being” with others, such as “Beggarly Bhāradvāja”, the bumptious ex-brahmin convert, and “Rags”, who is inclined to sleep during the sermon. This specimen survey seeks, however, to emphasize how much effort is still required in order to achieve and communicate an adequate appreciation of the verses, by striving to free the poetry from commentatorial obfuscation and editorial corruption.
Notes on the term “Dhāraṇī” in medieval Chinese Buddhist thought
Authors: Copp Paul 
Published: October 2008

Abstract“Dhāraṇī”, with its many cognates in Chinese and other languages, is one of the most complex terms in Buddhism. Particular shadings of the tradition's notions of memory, meaning, and meditation, as well as specific kinds of incantations and mnemonic devices, all fall within what can seem a rather bewildering semantic range. However, the logic of the term is consistent over a wide range of sources, though Western treatments have often been misleading. It is usually claimed that the basic practical significance of “dhāraṇī” is either memory or incantation. Yet Chinese sources make clear that each of these understandings overly privileges a narrow band of the term's usage. Understanding that the basic practical sense of “dhāraṇī” was “grasp”, not memory or spells, illuminates connections within a range of sources, from doctrinal treatments to injunctions to “hold” dhāraṇī-incantations in mind and, indeed, on the body encountered in texts of various kinds.
Islam for the indentured Indian: a Muslim missionary in colonial South Africa
Authors: Green Nile 
Published: October 2008

AbstractTracing the migration of Muslims from India to South Africa's Natal colony in the late nineteenth century, the article focuses on the missionary activities of Ghulām Muhammad “Sūfī Sāhib” (d. 1329/1911). Placing Ghulām Muhammad in a new religious marketplace of competing religions, and versions thereof, the article examines the strategies through which he successfully established his form of Islam among Natal's indentured and merchant Muslim classes and used the fabric of religion to bind together a distinctly “Muslim” community from the heterogeneous individuals and groups brought from India by commerce and the plantation economy. As a founder of shrines no less than madrasas, Ghulām Muhammad demonstrated the ways in which a customary Islam of holy men, festivities and hagiographies flourished and responded to the demands and opportunities of modernity. Building on the popular appeal of customary piety, Ghulām Muhammad consolidated his success by providing a range of social services (education, healthcare, burial) for the Indian poor of Natal, to create an effective public platform for the norms of Sharia in South Africa.
Heavy trochees in Choctaw morphology
Authors: Hammond Michael 
Published: October 2008

The theory of prosodic morphology (McCarthy & Prince 1986, 1990, 1993) maintains that various operations in morphology can refer to only a fixed set of prosodic categories. These operations include reduplication, infixation and various templatic systems. The prosodic categories are exhaustively listed in (1):This is an extremely constrained theory, as it limits a wide variety of operations to just this list of eight types.
Lexical Phonology: lexical and postlexical derivations
Authors: Rubach Jerzy 
Published: October 2008

Paul Kiparsky's paper (1982) ‘From Cyclic to Lexical Phonology’ is the most interesting recent development in the line of research originated by Kiparsky (1973) and Mascaró (1976). The major task in this research is the investigation of the ways in which rules apply to phonological structures. Kiparsky (1973) makes the very pointed observation that some phonological rules apply exclusively in derived environments. An environment is derived if either (i) or (ii) is true:(i) the structure which is relevant to the application of the rule arises at morpheme boundaries: the environment is thus derived morphologically;(ii) the structure which is relevant to the application of the rule arises in the course of phonological derivation due to the application of an earlier phonological rule: the environment is thus derived phonologically.
More on English vowel shift: the back vowel question
Authors: Ohala John J. , Wang H.Samuel , Derwing Bruce L. 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTOne of the pivotal claims of the generative approach to English phonology is that a rule essentially duplicating the historical changes of the English Great Vowel Shift is a part of the phonological competence of contemporary speakers of the language (Chomsky & Halle 1968). Though experiments designed to test this claim have shown that some of the alternations predicted by such a rule (VSR) are at least marginally productive for speakers, a counter-claim has also been proposed (Moskowitz 1973; Jaeger 1980) that this limited productivity is the result of knowledge of the familiar spelling rule (SR) that relates the ‘long’vs. ‘short’ pronunciations of the five English vowel letters.A comparison between the phonological and orthographic theories shows that certain back vowel alternations are crucial for distinguishing between them, and that certain others critically distinguish the Chomsky & Halle version of the VSR from the more recent reformulations of Halle (1977) and Halle & Mohanan (1985). A concept formation experiment was therefore conducted to determine which of these back vowel alternations were included in the vowel shift set. The results showed that all of the predictions of the SR were confirmed, whereas all three versions of the VSR were falsified on at least one count. Moreover, data from English spelling–sound regularities also proved to be highly predictive of the gradation of the responses found in this study, lending rather conclusive support to the view that the SR is responsible for all that has been found to be productive about the vowel shift phenomenon.
The representation of phonological information during speech production planning:evidence from vowel errors in spontaneous speech
Authors: Ohala John J. , Shattuck-Hufnagel Stefanie 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTA corpus of more than 500 speech errors that involve a vowel or syllabic nucleus is examined for evidence that bears on the nature of the processing representation that is in force when such errors occur. Evidence is obtained from the patterns of similarity between target segments and the intrusion segments that replace them in errors, on the assumption that target– intrusion similarity arises from characteristics of the processing representation. Findings include (1) a distinctive feature similarity between vowel targets and intrusions, (2) evidence that complex syllabic nuclei can function as error units and (3) evidence that vowel errors are constrained by lexical stress. Finally, the error patterns in both vowels and consonants, and the processing representations they suggest, are evaluated in the light of recent theoretical proposals about the phonological component of the grammar.
Government and tonal phrasing in Papago
Authors: Zwicky Arnold M. , Kaisse Ellen M. , Hale Kenneth , Selkirk Elisabeth 
Published: October 2008

The intonation contour of a Papago sentence is entirely predictable on the basis of its surface syntactic structure. It consists of a sequence of instances of the pattern (L)HL. For example, one Papago sentence may manifest a single (L)HL pattern, as in (I):while another will show repetitions of the canonical tonal shape, as in (2):Our task in this paper will be to characterise the distribution of the (L)HL pattern in Papago sentences. Our analysis is that the phonological representation of a sentence of Papago consists of a sequence of one or more tonal phrases, and that (L)HL is the pattern assigned to a tonal phrase. This tonal phrasing - i.e. the beginnings and ends of individual tonal phrases - will be indicated by parentheses in the tonal tier, as in (1) and (2). The association of the (L)HL pattern within each tonal phrase is captured by simple rules of the phonology, to be described in §2. Thus the description of the syntax of Papago intonation contours will centre on the tonal phrasing itself, and on the manner in which it is determined with respect to surface syntactic structure.
Lexical stresses in Macedonian and Polish
Authors: Hammond Michael 
Published: October 2008

SummaryWe have presented two different analyses of stress in Macedonian and Polish: one in terms of CGs and the other in terms of QS/ROB footing. Further, we showed how there were a number of problems with the CG account. We now consider those problems again in light of the latter analyses above.The first problem was that the emergence of unmarked stress under suffixation did not find a uniform explanation in Macedonian and Polish. This is not true of the revised analyses. Both are couched in terms of accent and the reemergence of regular stress in both languages follows as a consequence of distribution of lexical accent. In fact, aside from the contribution of secondary stresses in Polish and their absence in Macedonian, the analyses differ minimally. Footing in Macedonian is QS; footing in Polish is ROB.A second problem for the CG was that the reemergence of unmarked stress in Polish did not find a uniform explanation. Some cases were handled with lexical extrametricality, while others were handled with the special extrametricality rule.(44)This is also not a problem for the revised analysis. Class I and class II now differ minimally in the placement of accent.The third problem discussed above was the ad hoc character of the special extrametricality rule (44). This too is no longer a problem since this rule is no longer a part of the analysis. In fact, perhaps we can make the strong claim that rules of this type are to.be excluded in principle. An even stronger claim which might be supportable, though it would require we reconsider a number of analyses, is that lexical accent can never be marked with extrametricality. We leave this latter hypothesis open.Summarising, the best analysis of Macedonian and Polish requires a theory that makes use of two different kinds of footing – quantity-sensitive (QS) and revised obligatory-branching (ROB) – and that marks accent in terms of a diacritic feature rather than in terms of grid marks without constituency. Only by adopting such a theory can we capture in a satisfying fashion the generalisation exhibited in Macedonian and Polish, that regular stress reemerges when a word with exceptional stress undergoes sufficient affixation.
Constituent structure and government in phonology
Authors: Kaye Jonathan , Lowenstamm Jean , Vergnaud Jean-Roger 
Published: October 2008

Our aim in this paper is to address certain empirical and conceptual issues in the theory of Universal Phonology. Specifically, we will formulate a number of proposals aimed at characterising the notion ‘possible syllable' and ‘possible word'. The principles we will lay out follow from what we see as a unified theory of phonological government.The introduction of the notion of multi-levelled representations, as well as the recognition of constituent structure organisation in phonology, has allowed for a shift from mainly segment-internal, paradigmatic considerations to the study of syntagmatic relations holding between phonological units. What is now required is nothing less than a syntax of phonological expressions.