bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Systemic and local effects of angiotensin II blockade in experimental diabetic nephropathy
Authors: Vieitez Paula , Gómez Oscar , Uceda Esther R , Vera María Eugenia , Molina-Holgado Eduardo 
Published: June 2008

Introduction. Our objective was to evaluate the effect of blocking the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) on the expression of transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGF-β1), platelet derived growth factor-B (PDGF-B), tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in diabetic kidney glomeruli.Materials and Method. 1) Uninephrectomised streptozotocin induced diabetic rats were treated during eight months with vehicle (CD) or irbesartan (ID). Uninephrectomised non-diabetic rats were used as control group (ND). Protein urinary excretion and morphological renal damage were analysed. Glomerular expression of TGF-β1, PDGF-B, VEGF and TNF-α were evaluated by Western blot and Immunohistochemistry. 2) Isolated glomeruli of diabetic rats were incubated 24-hours in the presence of different doses of irbesartan. Glomerular expression of TGF-β1, PDGF-B,TNF-α and VEGF were determined by Western blot.Results. ND and ID presented lower renal injury and proteinuria than CD (p<0.05). Glomerular expression of TGF-β1, PDGF-B,TNF-α and VEGF were similar in ND and ID, but lower than in CD (p<0.05). In addition, in isolated diabetic rat glomeruli, irbesartan reduced the content of all these factors.Conclusion. Systemic and local administration of irbesartan lowers glomerular expression of TGF-β1, PDGF-B, VEGF and TNF-α.These data suggest that part of the effect of lowering the expression of these growth factors and cytokines is due to a direct blockade of glomerular RAS.
A cross‐phyla response to Daphnia chemical alarm substances by an aquatic oligochaete
Authors: Kaliszewicz Anita , Uchmański Janusz 
Published: June 2008

AbstractAlthough chemical alarm substances from damaged heterospecifics have been well documented to induce defense mechanisms in potential prey, data about antipredator responses to alarm cues from prey organisms of a distinct phylum are scarce. In this study, we analyze the response of an oligochaete to chemical alarm substances from distantly related cladocerans. We conducted laboratory experiments to investigate whether the aquatic oligochaete Stylaria lacustris detects and responds to alarm substances from Daphnia. The oligochaetes were exposed to alarm substances from Daphnia magna, which is a member of the same prey guild, and D. hyalina, which is vulnerable to different predators. S. lacustris increased the fission rate in response to cues from conspecifics and the heterospecific D. magna. These species share common predators, especially damselfly larvae and hydras. In contrast, chemical cues released from D. hyalina did not induce an increase in the reproductive rate of the oligochaetes. D. hyalina is a pelagic species and is not included in the diet of predators preying upon S. lacustris. Our results indicate cross‐phyla responses among invertebrates (Annelida and Arthropoda), and suggest strong selection pressures to respond to heterospecific alarm substances. The oligochaete S. lacustris is able to differentiate chemical substances released from damaged Daphnia of two different species. These results show that alarm cues released from damaged Daphnia may be species‐specific. However, further studies on the chemical structure of alarm substances in cladocerans are needed to support this hypothesis.
Use of end caps in elastic stable intramedullary nailing of femoral and tibial unstable fractures in children: Preliminary results in 11 fractures
Authors: Nectoux E. , Giacomelli M. C. , Karger C. , Gicquel P. , Clavert J. M. 
Published: June 2008

Background Elastic stable intramedullary nailing (ESIN) is used routinely world-wide for treating femoral and tibial shaft fractures in children before skeletal maturity. Overall, ESIN allows rapid limb mobilisation with few complications. However, many centres have experienced some complications resulting from secondary fracture displacement, especially in heavy adolescents and in spiroid or complex fractures due to changes in the nail's position, leading to limb shortening, malrotation and malalignment. End caps were designed by the AO expert group to address these complications. Purpose The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficiency, safety and tolerance of this new device in our first series of ten patients and 11 fractures. Methods Prospective follow-up of our first ten patients operated on with end caps. Results Our results show that there were no serious complications at a mean follow-up of 13.1 months. There was only one 10-mm leg shortening in a patient in whom the end caps could not be properly inserted. There were no infections, no additional pain and no skin irritation. The use of end caps eased the removal of the nails after bone healing, thereby preventing the formation of ossification over the tips of the nails and appeared to protect the skin next to the nail tip. Conclusion These results seem to prove the advantage of using end caps when performing ESIN in lower limb shaft fractures in children. A longer follow-up that includes more patients and a randomised prospective study should be carried out in the future to determine more precisely the indications of this new device.
What's in a name? Coming to terms with the child's linguistic environment
Authors: SAXTON MATTHEW 
Published: June 2008

ABSTRACTThis article reviews the proliferation of terms that have been coined to denote the language environment of the young child. It is argued that terms are often deployed by researchers without due consideration of their appropriateness for particular empirical studies. It is further suggested that just three of the dozen or more available terms meet the needs of child language researchers in most instances: child-directed speech, infant-directed speech and exposurelanguage. The phenomena denoted by these terms are then considered. The term register is generally borrowed for this purpose from sociolinguistics. However, close inspection of this concept reveals that the notion of register needs to be constrained, in specified ways, in order to be of any real value within the field of child language research.
Morphosyntax in children with word finding difficulties
Authors: MURPHY VICTORIA A. , DOCKRELL JULIE , MESSER DAVID , FARR HANNAH 
Published: June 2008

ABSTRACTChildren with word finding difficulties (CwWFDs) are slower and less accurate at naming monomorphemic words than typically developing children (Dockrell, Messer & George, 2001), but their difficulty in naming morphologically complex words has not yet been investigated. One aim of this paper was to identify whether CwWFDs are similar to typically developing children at producing inflected (morphologically complex) words. A second aim was to investigate whether the dual-mechanism model could account for the use of morphology in a sample of CwWFDs, exemplifying the notion that regular inflections are part of a rule-based system and computed on-line, while irregular inflections are retrieved directly from the associative system (Pinker, 1999). The inflectional knowledge of a group of CwWFDs was compared against a group of language age-matched typically developing peers in three experiments. In Experiment 1 children produced the past tenses of high- and low-frequency regular and irregular English verbs. In Experiment 2 children generalized their knowledge of the past tense system onto nonsense verbs and in Experiment 3 children produced past tenses of verbs used in either a denominal or a verb root context. In each of these three studies, the CwWFDs performed similarly to matched typical children, suggesting that they do not have a selective problem with morphosyntactic features of words. The findings provide mixed support for the dual-mechanism model.
Fast mapping by bilingual preschool children
Authors: KAN PUI FONG , KOHNERT KATHRYN 
Published: June 2008

ABSTRACTPrevious studies show that young monolingual children's ability to ‘fast map’ new word forms is closely associated with both their age and existing vocabulary knowledge. In this study we investigate potential relationships between age, fast mapping skills and existing vocabulary knowledge in both languages of developing bilingual preschool children. Participants were twenty-six typically developing children, ages 3 ; 0 to 5 ; 3. All children learned Hmong as their primary home language (L1) and English as a second language (L2). Fast mapping and vocabulary knowledge tasks were administered in L1 and L2. For vocabulary knowledge, scores were comparable in L1 and L2; for fast mapping, scores were somewhat greater in L1 than L2. In contrast to previous findings with monolingual children, fast mapping performance was not related to age or existing vocabulary knowledge in either Hmong or English. There were, however, significant positive and negative cross-language correlations between L1 fast mapping and L2 vocabulary.
Early perception–late comprehension of grammar? The case of verbal -s: a response to de Villiers & Johnson (2007)
Authors: SODERSTROM MELANIE 
Published: June 2008

ABSTRACTTwo recent papers (de Villiers & Johnson, 2007; Johnson, de Villiers & Seymour, 2005) have claimed that children have difficulty with verbal -suntil five–six-years-old. This contrasts with perceptual studies showing evidence for sensitivity to the grammatical properties of verbal -sas young as 1; 4. These apparently conflicting findings can be reconciled by differentiating between early perceptual grammatical knowledge and later semantic comprehension.
Does frequency count? Parental input and the acquisition of vocabulary
Authors: GOODMAN JUDITH C. , DALE PHILIP S. , LI PING 
Published: June 2008

ABSTRACTStudies examining factors that influence when words are learned typically investigate one lexical category or a small set of words. We provide the first evaluation of the relation between input frequency and age of acquisition for a large sample of words. The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory provides norming data on age of acquisition for 562 individual words collected from the parents of children aged 0 ; 8 to 2 ; 6. The CHILDES database provides estimates of frequency with which parents use these words with their children (age: 0 ; 7–7 ; 5; mean age: 36 months). For production, across all words higher parental frequency is associated with later acquisition. Within lexical categories, however, higher frequency is related to earlier acquisition. For comprehension, parental frequency correlates significantly with the age of acquisition only for common nouns. Frequency effects change with development. Thus, frequency impacts vocabulary acquisition in a complex interaction with category, modality and developmental stage.
Segmental properties of input to infants: a study of Korean
Authors: LEE SOYOUNG , DAVIS BARBARA L. , MACNEILAGE PETER F. 
Published: June 2008

ABSTRACTSegmental distributions of Korean infant-directed speech (IDS) and adult-directed speech (ADS) were compared. Significant differences were found in both consonant and vowel patterns. Korean-speaking mothers using IDS displayed more frequent labial consonantal place and less frequent coronal and glottal place and fricative manner. They showed more use of mid and low central vowels in IDS as well as more use of language-specific Korean phonemes. Mothers produced significantly more fortis and geminate and less lenis consonant phonemes in IDS than in ADS. Findings suggest that Korean mothers speaking to infants in the IDS speech style use sounds that more closely match infant production propensities as well as highlighting perceptually salient properties. IDS may serve to facilitate infant learning of ambient language phonological regularities.
Leisure, luxury and urban specialization in the eighteenth century
Authors: STOBART JON , SCHWARZ LEONARD 
Published: June 2008

ABSTRACTThis article forms a contribution to the ongoing debate about the nature of an English urban renaissance. We draw on Schwarz's designation of residential leisure towns to explore the spread of leisure and luxury through a broad range of towns. Our analysis reveals that leisure facilities and luxury service and retail provision were widespread, but that residential leisure towns appear as qualitatively different places, the status of which was contingent upon social profile and cultural-economy, rather than demographic, political or socio-economic make up. We conclude by arguing that urban typologies based on specialization should be tempered with older-established and more subjective categorizations based on the status of the town.
Mass commodity culture and identity: the Morning Chronicle and Irish migrants in a nineteenth-century Welsh industrial town
Authors: O'LEARY PAUL 
Published: June 2008

ABSTRACTThe ‘Labour and the Poor’ investigations of the Morning Chronicle newspaper, which charted social conditions in towns outside London in 1849–51, subjected Irish migrants in Britain to a hostile journalistic gaze. In the case of the iron-manufacturing town of Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales, the minority Irish ethnic identity was defined by observers in terms of exclusion from an emerging mass commodity culture and in opposition to the native working class. This early investigative journalism deployed some conventions of the contemporary novel that were familiar to its mainly middle-class readership to root social identities in material conditions.
‘Round-table discussions and small
conferences’: reflections on the slow gestation of the Urban History
Group
Authors: LAXTON PAUL 
Published: June 2008

ABSTRACTA small group of urban historians met informally at the annual conference of the
Economic History Society in 1962. In 1963, H.J. (Jim) Dyos, very much in charge
of the enterprise, began circulating a subscription newsletter. The early issues
of the Urban History Newsletter (the ancestor
of this journal) reveal the slow and hesitant way in which the Urban History
Group formed, growing rapidly in membership but reluctant to develop into a
formal society and determined against the establishment of a conventional
journal. There were after-dinner talks in 1966 and 1967 but only in April 1968
was a full-day meeting established in a pattern still followed 40 years on. This
light-hearted account is based on Dyos'
‘editorials’ in the Newsletter and personal memories of the man himself.
GENETICS OF CARDIAC MALFORMATIONS
Authors: TANG SHA , HUANG TAOSHENG 
Published: June 2008

ABSTRACTCongenital heart disease is one of the most common major malformations in humans, contributing substantially to the financial and psychological burden of child healthcare. About one percent of children are born with heart defects, and every year, more children die from congenital heart disease than are diagnosed with cancer. A diagnosis of congenital heart disease is frightening for parents, particularly when it affects a fragile newborn. The heart is the first organ to be matured in a human fetus and if a particular congenital heart defect is compatible with fetal life, the child will be born with a defective heart. More than 300 genetic syndromes are associated with congenital cardiac defects. In this review, we will discuss the genetics of congenital heart disease, how to carry out a diagnosis of the genetic causes and how to provide counseling for families with congenital heart disease.
Developing country participation in the GATT: a reassessment
Authors: WILKINSON RORDEN , SCOTT JAMES 
Published: June 2008

AbstractTwo broad interpretations currently prevail in the literature on developing country participation in the GATT. The first suggests that developing countries spent most of their time in the GATT negotiating to be relieved of various commitments, focusing on the pursuit of industrialization through import substitution and/or free-riding on the commitments made by their industrial counterparts. The second interpretation suggests that developing countries spent the majority of their time in the GATT either as ‘quiet bystanders’ lacking the expertise or political representation to participate fully, or else attempting to redress biases in the institution's design. The problem with both of these interpretations is that while each has merit neither offers a sufficiently rounded account of developing country participation. Our purpose in this paper is to offer an alternative account of developing country participation that shows more accurately the extent and variation of that participation. We argue that throughout the development of the GATT developing countries were active participants that consistently sought to have an impact on the nature and direction of the multilateral trading system. We also argue that while the energy of developing countries was often directed towards negotiating more favourable treatment for themselves, this was a result more of the asymmetrical manner in which the GATT was deployed and a consequence of their relative underdevelopment than of a desire to free-ride on the favourable trading conditions created by the concession exchanging activities of others.
Cross-agreement retaliation in the WTO dispute settlement system: an important enforcement mechanism for developing countries?
Authors: SPADANO LUCAS EDUARDO F. A. 
Published: June 2008

AbstractThis article aims at analysing the merits and limits of ‘cross-retaliation’ as a mechanism to induce compliance in WTO dispute settlement, specifically from the perspective of developing countries. The focus is on cross-agreement retaliation, in particular with respect to the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), as this seems to be the most ‘promising’ area for developing countries. Although there are several legal, economic, and administrative difficulties related to the implementation of a suspension of TRIPS obligations and there is so far no practical experience, this seems to remain an interesting option for developing countries – or at least for the largest ones among them – wishing to obtain greater leverage in the system.
The US–Canada softwood lumber dispute and the WTO definition of subsidy
Authors: GAGNÉ GILBERT , ROCH FRANÇOIS 
Published: June 2008

AbstractIn the softwood lumber dispute, the United States argues that Canada's forestry practices, especially the fees charged by provincial governments to private firms to harvest trees on public lands (stumpage rights), result in undue subsidization of Canadian lumber. Within the World Trade Organization, the concept of subsidy is defined as a ‘government financial contribution’ that confers a ‘benefit’ on firms and that is ‘specific’. In US–Softwood Lumber IV, the WTO authorities ruled that stumpage rights were specific and constituted a financial contribution through the provision of a good (timber). However, in order to demonstrate whether and to what extent these rights confer a benefit on lumber producers, the United States still has to ensure that its methodology to assess the ‘adequacy of remuneration’ is compatible with WTO provisions and to conduct a satisfactory ‘pass-through’ analysis of the alleged input stumpage subsidy to unrelated downstream lumber producers.
Drought-tolerant gene screening in wheat using rice microarray
Authors: Zhou-Da Xu , Rui-Lian Jing , Qiang Gan , Hai-Pan Zeng , Xue-Hui Sun , Hei Leung , Tie-Gang Lu , Guo-Zhen Liu 
Published: June 2008

AbstractTo investigate the wheat transcriptional profile under drought stress, a drought-tolerant variety of wheat (Triticum aestivum), Hanxuan 10, was treated with polyethylene glycol (PEG6000) and samples were collected at 0, 1, 6 and 24 h. Complementary DNA was labelled with fluorescent dye and hybridized with the BGI-RiceChip, a whole genome rice gene chip platform, which contains over 60 000 oligos based on the rice genome sequence. Data analysis detected 166, 207 and 328 differentially expressed genes (DGs), respectively, at 1, 6 and 24 h, indicating that the number of DGs increased with the length of the PEG treatment. Functional category analysis showed that the number of DGs related to energy metabolism pathways increased – 4.2%, 8.2% and 16.8%, respectively, as a proportion of the total number of DGs. Most of the photosynthesis-related genes were up-regulated. It is interesting to note that Psbr and ribulose-bisphosphate carboxylase (Rubisco)-coding genes were down-regulated, suggesting their potential role in the response to drought tolerance.
Classification of wheat PPO genes and effect of non-synonymous cSNP on kernel PPO activity
Authors: Xiao-Bo Wang , Chuan-Xi Ma , Hong-Qi Si , Xian-Fang He 
Published: June 2008

AbstractPolyphenol oxidase (PPO) activity is highly related to the undesirable browning of wheat-based end products. In this study, wheat PPO sequences (mRNA) were searched/BLASTed in the NCBI database and aligned using DNAMAN software. The results showed that wheat PPO genes could be divided into two clusters (I and II) and that three genes (‘i’) of cluster II seemed not to be located on chromosomes 2A and 2D. Ninety-four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were detected between two haplotypes of the PPO gene on chromosome 2D. Eighty of these were found in the coding region (coding (c) SNPs) and 36 were non-synonymous cSNPs, which could affect the PPO amino acid sequence. Primers (STS-H) were designed at some non-synonymous cSNPs sites and were used to investigate the correlations between allelic variants and PPO activity of seeds – a total of 130 common wheat varieties were evaluated in 2 years. The results showed that STS-H could amplify a 460 bp DNA fragment in most cultivars with high PPO activity, while no PCR product was detected in most cultivars with low PPO activity. To improve the selection efficiency of a single dominance molecular marker, the multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) system of STS-H and STS01 markers was also studied, based on the complementary between them.
AFLP analyses on genetic diversity and structure ofEupatorium adenophorumpopulations in China
Authors: Wen-Kun Huang , Jian-Ying Guo , Fang-Hao Wan , Bi-Da Gao , Bing-Yan Xie 
Published: June 2008

AbstractEupatorium adenophorum(crofton weed) is one of the most widespread invasive species in China. Its genetic diversity and population structure in China were analysed by amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). Three primer pairs were selected for the analysis and 490 bands were produced from 62E. adenophorumpopulations selected from five major geographic areas. A total of 328 of the bands showed polymorphism [percentage of polymorphic bands (PPB)=59.4%]. Diversity levels of populations were relatively high (mean expected heterozygosity=0.154, mean Shannon index=0.241). At the regional level, the AMOVA indicated that about 70.25% of variation in the data set was from genotypic variations within populations, whereas 8.04% of the variation was due to regional differences, and the remaining 21.71% to differences among populations within the provincial regions. Cluster analysis based on the unweighted pair-group method using the method of arithmetic averages (UPGMA) grouped the majority ofE. adenophorumpopulations into four main clusters, which correspond to their geographic regions. It is concluded thatE. adenophorumspread mainly by wind or water and its genetic diversity level in newly invaded areas was lower than that in formerly colonized areas.