bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effect of cysteine dosage on erythrocyte glutathione synthesis rate in a patient with cystathionine beta synthase deficiency
Authors: van der Crabben S. N. , Wijburg F. A. , Ackermans M. T. , Sauerwein H. P. 
Published: January 2008

SummaryCystathionine β‐synthase (CBS)‐deficient patients develop premature arteriosclerosis and thrombosis leading to a high risk of a vascular event before the age of 30 years. In CBS deficiency the transsulfuration pathway is impaired, leading to markedly elevated levels of homocysteine and methionine, and severely decreased levels of cystathionine and cysteine. Through autooxidation these elevated levels of homocysteine might induce excessive production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS are involved in endothelial damage and are neutralized by antioxidants. In humans the main antioxidant is glutathione (GSH). Its production mainly depends on the amount of available cysteine. Since cysteine levels in CBS deficiency are decreased, GSH production is presumed to be low. Accordingly, all CBS‐deficient patients receive cysteine supplements, which supposedly stimulate GSH synthesis. However, data on the effect of cysteine dosage on GSH synthesis in CBS‐deficient patients are lacking. Therefore, in a CBS‐deficient pyridoxine non‐responsive female patient, concentration and fractional synthesis rate (FSR) of erythrocyte GSH were measured by infusion of l‐[3,3‐2H2]cysteine tracer during prolonged cysteine supplementation with 88 and 40 mg/kg per day. Erythrocyte GSH concentration and its FSR at cysteine supplementation with 88 versus 40 mg/kg per day were 1.25 versus 1.30 mmol/L and 230 versus 254% per day, respectively. These data suggest that in a CBS‐deficient patient exogenous supply of 40 mg cysteine/kg per day is sufficient to maintain GSH synthesis in erythrocytes. Further studies in larger patient groups should be initiated to measure the effects on GSH metabolism to further elucidate the correct dose of cysteine supplements in CBS‐deficient patients.
Methylmalonate inhibits succinate‐supported oxygen consumption by interfering with mitochondrial succinate uptake
Authors: Mirandola S. R. , Melo D. R. , Schuck P. F. , Ferreira G. C. , Wajner M. , Castilho R. F. 
Published: January 2008

SummaryThe effect of methylmalonate (MMA) on mitochondrial succinate oxidation has received great attention since it could present an important role in energy metabolism impairment in methylmalonic acidaemia. In the present work, we show that while millimolar concentrations of MMA inhibit succinate‐supported oxygen consumption by isolated rat brain or muscle mitochondria, there is no effect when either a pool of NADH‐linked substrates or N,N,N′,N′‐tetramethyl‐p‐phenylendiamine (TMPD)/ascorbate were used as electron donors. Interestingly, the inhibitory effect of MMA, but not of malonate, on succinate‐supported brain mitochondrial oxygen consumption was minimized when nonselective permeabilization of mitochondrial membranes was induced by alamethicin. In addition, only a slight inhibitory effect of MMA was observed on succinate‐supported oxygen consumption by inside‐out submitochondrial particles. In agreement with these observations, brain mitochondrial swelling experiments indicate that MMA is an important inhibitor of succinate transport by the dicarboxylate carrier. Under our experimental conditions, there was no evidence of malonate production in MMA‐treated mitochondria. We conclude that MMA inhibits succinate‐supported mitochondrial oxygen consumption by interfering with the uptake of this substrate. Although succinate generated outside the mitochondria is probably not a sig‐nificant contributor to mitochondrial energy generation, the physiopathological implications of MMA‐induced inhibition of substrate transport by the mitochondrial dicarboxylate carrier are discussed.
Oligomeric β‐amyloid(1‐42) induces the expression of Alzheimer disease‐relevant proteins in cholinergic SN56.B5.G4 cells as revealed by proteomic analysis
Authors: Joerchel Sabrina , Raap Maik , Bigl Marina , Eschrich Klaus , Schliebs Reinhard 
Published: January 2008

AbstractAlzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by cholinergic dysfunction and progressive basal forebrain cell loss which has been hypothesized to be associated with extensive accumulation of β‐amyloid (Aβ). To reveal whether oligomeric Aβ displays a particular toxicity for cholinergic neurons, the cholinergic cell line SN56.B5.G4 (SN56) was used as a model. Recently performed microarray analyses demonstrated that genes affected by exposure of SN56 cells with 50 μM oligomeric Aβ(1‐42) for 24 h were involved in protein modification and degradation [Heinitz, K., Beck, M., Schliebs, R., Perez‐Polo, J.R., 2006. Toxicity mediated by soluble oligomers of beta‐amyloid(1‐42) on cholinergic SN56.B5.G4 cells. J. Neurochem. 98, 1930–1945]. Using a proteomic approach, we compared the levels of proteins and specially of phosphorylated proteins in cytosolic fractions of cell lysates from cholinergic SN56 cells exposed to 50 μM Aβ(1‐42) for 24 h to those in control incubations. We show here that the levels of calreticulin, and mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) kinase 6c were up‐regulated in cholinergic SN56 cells exposed to Aβ(1‐42), while γ‐actin appeared down‐regulated. Aβ(1‐42) exposure of cholinergic SN56 cells led to decreased phosphorylation of phosphoproteins, such as the Rho GDP dissociation inhibitor, the ubiquitin carboxyl terminal hydrolase‐1, and the tubulin α‐chain isotype Mα6, as compared to untreated control lysates. The proteins identified have also been reported to be affected in brains of AD patients, suggesting a potential role of Aβ in influencing the integrity and functioning of the proteome in AD.
PCR detection of excision suggests mobility of the medaka fishTol1transposable element in the frogXenopus laevis
Authors: HIKOSAKA AKIRA , KOGA AKIHIKO 
Published: January 2008

SummaryTol1is a DNA-based transposable element identified in the medaka fishOryzias latipesand a member of thehAT(hobo/Activator/Tam3) transposable element family. Its mobility has already been demonstrated in the human and mouse, in addition to its original host species. This element is thus expected to be useful in a wide range of vertebrates as a genomic manipulation tool. Herein, we show that theTol1element can undergo excision in the African clawed frogXenopus laevis, a major model organism for vertebrate genetics and developmental biology. An indicator plasmid carrying aTol1element was injected into 2- or 4-cell-stage embryos together with either a helper plasmid coding for the full-lengthTol1transposase or a modified helper plasmid yielding a truncated protein, and recovered from tailbud-stage embryos. Deletion of theTol1region of the indicator plasmid was observed in the experiment with the full-length transposase, and not in the other case. The deletion was associated with various footprint sequences at breakpoints, as frequently observed with many DNA-based transposable elements. These results indicate that theTol1element was excised from the indicator plasmid by catalysis of the transposase, and suggest that theTol1element is mobile in this frog species.
Efficient, incremental coverage of space with a continuous curve
Authors: Ramamoorthy Subramanian , Rajagopal Ram , Wenzel Lothar 
Published: January 2008

SUMMARYThis paper is concerned with algorithmic techniques for the incremental generation of continuous curves that can efficiently cover an abstract surface. We introduce the notion of low-discrepancy curves as an extension of the notion of low-discrepancy sequences—such that sufficiently smooth curves with low-discrepancy properties can be defined and generated. We then devise a procedure for lifting these curves, that efficiently cover the unit cube, to abstract surfaces, such as nonlinear manifolds. We present algorithms that yield suitable fair mappings between the unit cube and the abstract surface. We demonstrate the application of these ideas using some concrete examples of interest in robotics.
Torture of terrorists? Use of torture in a “war against terrorism”: justifications, methods and effects: the case of France in Algeria, 1954–1962
Authors: Branche Raphaëlle 
Published: January 2008

AbstractDuring its war against the armed nationalist movement fighting for Algerian independence (1954–62), France made extensive use of torture, for which the main justification given was the terrorism employed by the National Liberation Front, even though such terrorist violence was neither the nationalists' main form of action nor the French army's true target. Research into the methods used and the aims pursued challenges that justification, shedding light on the way in which torture really operates in a war of this kind, even though the Algerian War has been presented as a model for many subsequent conflict situations.
“In truth the leitmotiv”: the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill-treatment in international humanitarian law
Authors: Droege Cordula 
Published: January 2008

AbstractThe principle of humane treatment, as Jean Pictet wrote in 1958, is in truth the leitmotiv of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. Article 3 common to these Conventions and other provisions of International Humanitarian Law embody this absolute and minimum rule by prohibiting torture, cruel or inhuman treatment and outrages upon personal dignity. These notions can be interpreted in meaningful and practical ways through the existing instruments and jurisprudence on the prohibition of ill-treatment. Their assessment must take into account the need to respect the human being in all his or her physical, mental and moral integrity, mindful of all the circumstances of the case.
Black letter abuse: the US legal response to torture since 9/11
Authors: Ross James 
Published: January 2008

AbstractThe use of torture by the US armed forces and the CIA was not limited to “a few bad apples” at Abu Ghraib but encompassed a broader range of practices, including rendition to third countries and secret “black sites”, that the US administration deemed permissible under US and international law. This article explores the various legal avenues pursued by the administration to justify and maintain its coercive interrogation programme, and the response by Congress and the courts. Much of the public debate concerned defining and redefining torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. While US laws defining torture have moved closer to international standards, they have also effectively shut out those seeking redress for mistreatment from bringing their cases before the courts and protect those responsible from prosecution.
Imaging features of helical computed tomography suggesting advanced urothelial carcinoma arising from the pelvocalyceal system
Authors: Kwak Kyung Won , Park Byung Kwan , Kim Chan Kyo , Lee Hyun Moo , Choi Han Yong 
Published: January 2008

Background: Urothelial carcinoma is the most common malignant tumor arising from the pelvocalyceal system. Helical computed tomography (CT) is probably the best preoperative-stage modality for the determination of treatment plan and prognosis. Purpose: To obtain helical CT imaging features suggesting advanced pelvocalyceal urothelial carcinoma. Material and Methods: Preoperative CT images in 44 patients with pelvocalyceal urothelial carcinoma were retrospectively reviewed and correlated with the pathological examination to determine imaging features suggesting stage III or IV of the disease. Results: Pathological stages revealed stage I in 16, stage II in three, stage III in 17, and stage IV in eight patients. Seven patients had metastatic lymph nodes. CT imaging showed that renal parenchymal invasion, sinus fat invasion, and lymph node metastasis were highly suggestive of advanced urothelial cell carcinoma ( P<0.05). Helical CT sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for advanced pelvocalyceal urothelial carcinoma were 76% (19/25), 84% (16/19), and 80% (35/44), respectively. Conclusion: Preoperative helical CT may suggest imaging features of advanced urothelial carcinoma, influencing treatment plan and patient prognosis, even though its accuracy is not so high.
Adult sail sign: radiographic and computed tomographic features
Authors: Lee Yu-Jin , Han Daehee , Koh Young Hwan , Zo Joo Hee , Kim Sang-Hyun , Kim Deog Kyeom , Lee Jeong Sang , Moon Hyeon Jong , Kim Jong Seung , Chun Eun Ju , Youn Byung Jae , Lee Chang Hyun , Kim Sam Soo 
Published: January 2008

Background: The sail sign is a well-known radiographic feature of the pediatric chest. This sign can be observed in an adult population as well, but for a different reason. Purpose: To investigate the sail sign appearing in adult chest radiography. Material and Methods: Based on two anecdotal adult cases in which frontal chest radiographs showed the sail sign, we prospectively screened radiographs of 10,238 patients to determine the incidence of the sail sign found in adults in their 40s or older. The cause of the sail sign was assessed using computed tomography (CT). Results: The sail sign was revealed in 10 (seven males, three females; median age 60.6 years) of 10,238 patients. Of these 10 patients with a sail sign on frontal radiographs, eight underwent CT. The frontal radiographs of these 10 patients showed a concave superior margin toward the lung in nine patients, a concave inferior margin in five, and a double-lined inferior margin in three. Lateral radiographs disclosed a focal opacity over the minor fissure in five of six patients, which was either fuzzy ( n = 4) or sharp ( n = 1) in its upper margin, and was sometimes double lined in the inferior margin ( n = 3). CT revealed the anterior mediastinal fat to be the cause of the radiographic sail sign, which stretched laterally from the mediastinum to insinuate into the minor fissure. Conclusion: The incidence of sail sign on adult chest radiographs is about 0.1%. The sign is specific enough to eliminate the need for more sophisticated imaging.
In Byron's Shadow
Authors: Roessel David 
Published: January 2008

AbstractThis book examines the significance of what Victor Hugo called the “Greece of Byron” or modern Greece in English and American literature. Although ancient Greece, Hugo's “Greece of Homer”, and modern Greece occupy the same geographical space on the map, they are two distinct entities in the Western imagination. Modern Greece, constructed by the early 19th-century ideals and ideas associated with Byron, has been “haunted, holy ground” in literature for almost two centuries. This book analyzes how authors employ ideas about romantic nationalism, gender politics, shifts in cultural constructions, and literary experimentation to create variations of “Greece” to suit changing eras.
Introduction
Authors: Roessel David 
Published: January 2008

AbstractThis introductory chapter begins with a description of the primary aim of this book, which is to examine the significance of what Victor Hugo called the “Greece of Byron”, or modern Greece, in English and American writing. It argues that the Romantic age constructed an image of a politicized, female, modern Greece fit for the temple of Apollo. This image dominated representations of Greece into the 20th century and was eventually transmuted by writers affiliated with modernism into an apolitical, male Greece in a Dionysian frenzy. The transition is obvious in literary works, but the reasons are not, and it certainly cannot be explained only as a modernist reaction to Romantic Greece. The literary geography of the Mediterranean is equally important. While the story of Italy or Egypt in English and American writing differs greatly from that of Greece, the perception of these three places and the adjoining areas interact and affect one another. An overview of the three parts of the book is presented.
1 I Want to Revive Athens
Authors: Roessel David 
Published: January 2008

AbstractIn early 1770, a small expeditionary force from Russia landed in the southern Peloponnesus to aid local Greeks in a rebellion against Ottoman rule. The revolt of 1770 appears in history, when it appears at all, as a footnote to the Russo-Turkish Wars of 1768-1774 or the more important Greek rebellion of 1821. This chapter argues that 1770 marked a watershed in how Western Europeans perceived modern Greeks. The revolt was the emergence of philhellenism as a significant literary movement, and the year 1770 continued to echo in European writing for decades.
3 On the Ruins of Missolonghi
Authors: Roessel David 
Published: January 2008

AbstractThe town of Missolonghi, situated in a salt marsh in western Greece just north of the Corinthian Gulf, had been under siege since April 27, 1825. By the middle of April 1826 the Greeks were in a desparate situation: food was scarce and ammunition low. Rather than surrender to the attacking Ottoman and Egyptian armies, the defenders of Missolonghi decided to try to break through Turkish lines on the night of April 22, 1826. Out of 9,000 men, women, and children who took part, only about 2,000 eventually reached safety. On April 24, the last remaining Greek soldiers blew themselves up in the town's powder magazine. This chapter argues that Byron's Minotti had expired exactly the same way at the end of The Siege of Corinth and that, in Western European eyes, these Greek soldiers also lived and died a Byronic fiction. The rest of the world revered Missolonghi. And it was Byron who was primarily responsible for placing one of the more obscure and unappealing locations in Greece on the map of the world.
6 Politicized Pans
Authors: Roessel David 
Published: January 2008

AbstractThis chapter shows that following the “rebirth” of Greece in 1833, the Western world began to look for signs of the promised revitalization that had been confidently assumed in earlier philhellenic literature. From 1833 until 1900, philhellenes and Turkophiles fought over their ideas on the degree of progress that had been made in Greece. However, toward the end of the 19th century, intellectuals in Britain and America began to turn away from the Victorian view of science and advancement as a sign of progress. In opposition to the perceived ugliness and emptiness of modern urban life, a pastoral ideal once again found favor. As at the end of the 18th century, a hundred years later the ancient Greeks again occupied a special place in the pastoral vogue. For many thinkers of European descent the ancient Greek world still represented their collective, lost, bucolic past. The importance of Greek antiquity in this desire to return to nature is supported by Samuel Hynes's observation that “Pan is a particularly prominent figure” in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods.
The Navel of the Demoness
Authors: Ramble Charles 
Published: January 2008

Abstract
This book is a study of religion in a Tibetanised community of highland Nepal. The village of Te, in Mustang District, is nominally Buddhist: until recent times it had a tradition of Sakyapa monasticism, and depends on Nyingmapa tantric priests for ritual and clerical services. However, it also has a thriving cult of territorial divinities involving the performance of animal sacrifices. At first glance, Te appears to be a fundamentally pagan community attempting to preserve its traditions against the efforts of Tibetan Buddhist missionaries. However, a closer investigation reveals that this picture of simple ideological opposition is untenable. A combination of ethnographic observation and a close study of the community's archives—which date back to the 17th century—reveals an altogether more complex picture. Documentary evidence indicates that clan solidarity was gradually replaced by a sense of shared community. The creation of this community was an active process involving the designation of public resources, the production of written laws, a change in the inheritance pattern, and the emergence of ceremonies that entailed the piecemeal adoption of Buddhist rituals and dramatised episodes from Te's history. This complex is best understood in terms of civil religion, a concept developed by Rousseau and later elaborated by writers such as Robert Bellah and Gerald Parsons. While this reified community is ultimately the product of the individuals of which it is composed, it is perceived and represented as an autonomous, “transcendent” entity with a reciprocal influence on their lives.
Defining Women Out of Ordination
Authors: Macy Gary 
Published: January 2008

Abstract
This chapter presents in detail how the definition of ordination changed in the 11th and 12th century. A law from the 11th‐century reform council of Benevento was interpreted by both canon lawyers and theologians to limit ordination to the ministries of subdeacon, deacon, and priest. At the same time, based on a scriptural commentary attributed to St. Ambrose, canonists and theologians began to argue that women could not be ordained. A debate in both canon law and theology concerning the ordination of women continued until the end of the 12th century. By the 13th century, however, it was assumed in both law and theology that women could not be ordained and indeed had never been ordained.
Methodology 1
Authors: Fitzgerald Timothy 
Published: January 2008

AbstractThis chapter reviews some of the current and recent literature produced in religious studies departments and delineates the present book in relation to them. It shows how the construction of “religion” as an essentialized domain distinct from “nonreligious” domains feeds on other essentialized rhetorical binaries such as God and the world, nature and supernature, mind and matter, female and male, science and faith, rationality and irrationality. These binaries underlie the transformation of encompassing Religion as Christian Truth into the contemporary commodification of religions as multiple objects in the world. Religion has been “disembedded” from a holistic worldview and turned into the objects of “secular” knowledge, much as anthropologists have disembedded a putative sphere of “economic” practice from non‐European cultures. Problems in translating dominant Anglophone categories into non‐European languages are analogous to translating contemporary Anglophone usages into premodern Anglophone usages. “Religions,” like “nations,” are specific, historically emergent acts of the imagination that make modernity seem inevitable.
Religion, State, and American Constitutionalism
Authors: Fitzgerald Timothy 
Published: January 2008

AbstractThe case of William Penn shows us a dissenter who strove to articulate a new discourse on the essential difference between the external domain of the magistrate and civil society on the one hand, and the private and inner domain of religion on the other. His and Locke's ideas fed into the general stream of American dissent and bills of rights which culminated in the Federal Constitution. Even within the Church of England Bishop Hoadly, often quoted by American revolutionaries, preached to the King the essential distinction authorized by Jesus between the kingdoms of this and the future worlds. That many of these revolutionary ideas were the stuff of sermons and pamphlets written by priests underscores the point that the distinction between religions as private nonpolitical domains of voluntary associations, and politics as a nonreligious domain of public obligation, was a rhetorical formation in the making, a discursive space intended to subvert and replace a radically different and older discourse of Religion as encompassing Christian Truth.