bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Cooperative Role of Macrophages and Neutrophils in Host Antiprotozoan Resistance in Mice Acutely Infected withCryptosporidium parvum
Authors: Takeuchi Dan , Jones Vickie C. , Kobayashi Makiko , Suzuki Fujio 
Published: June 2008

ABSTRACTSevere experimental infections withCryptosporidium parvumhave been reported in immunocompromised animals such as SCID mice (mice without functional T cells and B cells). In aC. parvuminfection with 1 × 106oocysts/mouse in SCID beige (SCIDbg) mice (SCID mice lacking functional NK cells), oocyst shedding was first demonstrated 18 days after infection. However, shedding was shown as early as 3 days after the same infection in SCIDbgMN mice. All of the SCIDbgMN mice died within 16 days ofC. parvuminfection, while 100% of the SCIDbg mice exposed to the parasite survived. SCIDbgMN mice are SCIDbg mice depleted of functional macrophages (Mφ) and neutrophils (PMN), suggesting that the severity early afterC. parvuminfection is strongly influenced by the functions of Mφ and PMN. All SCIDbgMN mice orally infected with a lethal dose ofC. parvumsurvived after they were inoculated with Mφ from SCIDbg mice exposed toC. parvum(CP-Mφ) or resident Mφ previously cultured with PMN fromC. parvum-infected SCIDbg mice (CP-PMN). However, all SCIDbgMN mice inoculated with CP-PMN alone or resident Mφ alone died afterC. parvuminfection. CP-Mφ were identified as classically activated Mφ (M1Mφ), and CP-PMN were characterized as PMN-I. In in vitro studies, resident Mφ converted to M1Mφ after transwell cultivation with CP-PMN. These results indicate that the resistance of SCIDbg mice early afterC. parvuminfection is displayed through the function of M1Mφ which are converted from resident Mφ influenced by CP-PMN (PMN-I).
Screening of Highly Expressed Mycobacterial Genes Identifies Rv3615c as a Useful Differential Diagnostic Antigen for theMycobacterium tuberculosisComplex
Authors: Sidders Ben , Pirson Chris , Hogarth Philip J. , Hewinson R. Glyn , Stoker Neil G. , Vordermeier H. Martin , Ewer Katie 
Published: June 2008

ABSTRACTTuberculous infections caused by mycobacteria, especially tuberculosis of humans and cattle, are important both clinically and economically. Human populations can be vaccinated withMycobacterium bovisbacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), and control measures for cattle involving vaccination are now being actively considered. However, diagnostic tests based on tuberculin cannot distinguish between genuine infection and vaccination with BCG. Therefore, identification of differential diagnostic antigens capable of making this distinction is required, and until now sequence-based approaches have been predominant. Here we explored the link between antigenicity and mRNA expression level, as well as the possibility that we may be able to detect differential antigens by analyzing quantified global transcriptional profiles. We generated a list of 14 candidate antigens that are highly expressed inMycobacterium tuberculosisandM. bovisunder a variety of growth conditions. These candidates were screened inM. bovis-infected and naïve cattle for the ability to stimulate a gamma interferon (IFN-γ) response. We identified one antigen, Rv3615c, which stimulated IFN-γ responses in a significant proportion ofM. bovis-infected cattle (11 of 30 cattle [37%] [P< 0.01]) but not in naïve or BCG-vaccinated animals. Importantly, the same antigen stimulated IFN-γ responses in a significant proportion of infected cattle that did not respond to the well-characterized mycobacterial antigens ESAT-6 and CFP-10. Therefore, use of the Rv3615c epitope in combination with previously described differential tests based on ESAT-6 and CFP-10 has the potential to significantly increase diagnostic sensitivity without reducing specificity in BCG-vaccinated populations.
Helicobacter pyloriInfection Stimulates Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor 1 Production by Gastric Epithelial Cells
Authors: Keates A. C. , Tummala S. , Peek R. M. , Csizmadia E. , Kunzli B. , Becker K. , Correa P. , Romero-Gallo J. , Piazuelo M. B. , Sheth S. , Kelly C. P. , Robson S. C. , Keates S. 
Published: June 2008

ABSTRACTChronic infection with the gastric pathogenHelicobacter pylorisignificantly increases the risk of developing atrophic gastritis, peptic ulcer disease, and gastric adenocarcinoma.H. pyloristrains that possess thecagpathogenicity island, which translocates CagA into the host cells, augment these risks. The aim of this study was to determine the molecular mechanisms through whichH. pyloriupregulates the expression of plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1), a member of the urokinase activator system that is involved in tumor metastasis and angiogenesis. Levels of PAI-1 mRNA and protein were examined in tissues fromH. pylori-infected patients and in vitro using AGS gastric epithelial cells. In vitro, cells were infected with toxigeniccag-positive or nontoxigeniccag-negative strains ofH. pylorior isogenic mutants. The amount of PAI-1 secretion was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and mRNA levels were determined using real-time PCR. The regulation of PAI-1 was examined using the extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) inhibitor and small interfering RNA. Analysis of human biopsy samples revealed an increase in both PAI-1 mRNA and protein levels in patients withH. pylorigastritis compared to those of uninfected controls. Infection of AGS cells withH. pylorisignificantly increased PAI-1 mRNA expression and the secretion of PAI-1 protein. Moreover, PAI-1 mRNA and protein production was more pronounced when AGS cells were infected byH. pyloristrains carrying a functionalcagsecretion system than when cells were infected by strains lacking this system. PAI-1 secretion was also reduced when cells were infected with eithercagE-negative orcagA-negative mutants. The ectopic overexpression of CagA significantly increased the levels of PAI-1 mRNA and protein, whereas blockade of the ERK1/2 pathway inhibitedH. pylori-mediated PAI-1 upregulation. These findings suggest that the upregulation of PAI-1 inH. pylori-infected gastric epithelial cells may contribute to the carcinogenic process.
Whiplash risk estimation based on linked hospital–police road crash data from France and Spain
Authors: Martin J-L , Pérez K , Marí-Dell’Olmo M , Chiron M 
Published: June 2008

Objectives:To investigate potential risk factors for whiplash injury as a function of crash configuration and driver’s characteristics, and to provide information on over-reporting and under-reporting of whiplash.Design:A case–control study of drivers involved in two-car injury collisions. Cases were drivers who had a diagnosis of whiplash injury, with or without another injury. Controls were drivers without diagnosed whiplash injury.Setting:Hospital registries linked to police crash databases for Barcelona (Spain) and the “Département du Rhône” (France).Main outcome measures:Relative risks of whiplash and 95% confidence intervals were estimated using a modified Poisson regression.Results:Of the 8720 drivers involved in car-to-car crashes recorded in the French database, 12.2% were diagnosed with whiplash; the corresponding figure in the Spanish database was 12.0% of 7558 drivers. Female drivers and drivers in rear-impact collisions were most likely to have a whiplash diagnosis, although the absolute number of whiplash cases was greater in front and side impacts. Wearing a seatbelt, being in a heavier car, and age greater than 65 years were associated with a lower risk of whiplash injury. Drivers with other injuries were also more often diagnosed as having a whiplash injury, except the most severely injured.Conclusions:Devices aimed at reducing the occurrence of whiplash injuries, such as dynamic headrest systems, should be adapted to the characteristics of at-risk occupants, especially women, and should address the mechanics of front and side impacts in addition to rear impacts.
Paraprofessional home visitation program to prevent childhood unintentional injuries in low-income communities: a cluster randomized controlled trial
Authors: Swart L , van Niekerk A , Seedat M , Jordaan E 
Published: June 2008

Objective:To investigate the effectiveness of a paraprofessional home visitation program (HVP) to improve home safety and prevent injuries among children living in low-income settings.Methods:The HVP was implemented in two low-income communities in South Africa. In each community, approximately 200 households were randomly selected for the trial. Eligible households were those with children aged ⩽10 years. Intervention households received four visits, one every two weeks, by trained paraprofessionals that focused on a specific injury topic and consisted of: information dissemination about specific injury prevention practices; home inspection accompanied by information about home hazards; and the supply of safety devices. The key outcomes to measure the presence of home hazards were scores for burns (safety practices, paraffin, and electrical), poisoning, and falls.Results:Significant reductions were found for injury risks related to burn safety practices. For injury risks related to electrical burns, paraffin burns, and poisoning, a decline was also noted although this was not statistically significant. No decline was noted for fall-related risks.Conclusions:Subject to further replication and evaluation, home visits by paraprofessionals providing safety education, home inspection, and safety devices be considered for integration into a comprehensive child injury prevention strategy in low-income communities.
Association of smoking and smoking cessation with major causes of mortality in the Asia Pacific Region: the Asia Pacific Cohort Studies Collaboration
Authors: Barzi F , Huxley R , Jamrozik K , Lam T-H , Ueshima H , Gu D , Kim H C , Woodward M 
Published: June 2008

Background:Although the dangers of smoking, and the benefits of quitting, are well established and understood in the West, smoking remains popular among Asian men. We investigated the associations between smoking (including ex-smoking) and major causes of mortality in Asian men and women, and compared with Australians and New Zealanders (ANZ).Methods:An overview of 34 cohort studies in the Asia Pacific region involving 512 676 individuals (81 from Asia), followed up for a median of 6.7 years (20 804 deaths).Results:Mortality rates for cause-specific and all causes of mortality were systematically higher for current compared with never smokers. Hazard ratios (HR) for overall and cause-specific mortality comparing current-smokers with never smokers, ex- smokers with current-smokers and comparing numbers of cigarettes smoked per day, were higher for ANZ than Asia (p<0.001). For overall mortality, the HR (95 CI) comparing current-smoking with not was 1.37 (1.23 to 1.53) and 1.33 (1.26 to 1.40) in Asian men and women respectively. The corresponding figures in ANZ were 1.95 (1.81 to 2.09) and 1.85 (1.69 to 2.02). The HR for quitting in ANZ was 0.67 (0.63 to 0.71) and 0.66 (0.58 to 0.74) in men and women respectively. Quitting smoking had a significant benefit among Asian men, the HR was 0.88 (0.81 to 0.97) after ignoring the first 3 years of follow-up. There was no evidence of benefit for Asian women, for whom ex-smoking is rare.Conclusions:Allowing for the recent uptake of smoking in Asia, its effects are comparable to those observed in ANZ. Stringent tobacco control measures and smoking cessation strategies are urgently required in Asia.
EQUIVALENCE OF LABELED MARKOV CHAINS
Authors: DOYEN LAURENT , HENZINGER THOMAS A. , RASKIN JEAN-FRANÇOIS 
Published: June 2008

We consider the equivalence problem for labeled Markov chains (LMCs), where each state is labeled with an observation. Two LMCs are equivalent if every finite sequence of observations has the same probability of occurrence in the two LMCs. We show that equivalence can be decided in polynomial time, using a reduction to the equivalence problem for probabilistic automata, which is known to be solvable in polynomial time. We provide an alternative algorithm to solve the equivalence problem, which is based on a new definition of bisimulation for probabilistic automata. We also extend the technique to decide the equivalence of weighted probabilistic automata. Then, we consider the equivalence problem for labeled Markov decision processes (LMDPs), which asks given two LMDPs whether for every scheduler (i.e. way of resolving the nondeterministic decisions) for each of the processes, there exists a scheduler for the other process such that the resulting LMCs are equivalent. The decidability of this problem remains open. We show that the schedulers can be restricted to be observation-based, but may require infinite memory.
Reputation-based framework for high integrity sensor networks
Authors: Ganeriwal Saurabh , Balzano Laura K. , Srivastava Mani B. 
Published: June 2008

Sensor network technology promises a vast increase in automatic data collection capabilities through efficient deployment of tiny sensing devices. The technology will allow users to measure phenomena of interest at unprecedented spatial and temporal densities. However, as with almost every data-driven technology, the many benefits come with a significant challenge in data reliability. If wireless sensor networks are really going to provide data for the scientific community, citizen-driven activism, or organizations which test that companies are upholding environmental laws, then an important question arises: How can a user trust the accuracy of information provided by the sensor network? Data integrity is vulnerable to both node and system failures. In data collection systems, faults are indicators that sensor nodes are not providing useful information. In data fusion systems the consequences are more dire; the final outcome is easily affected by corrupted sensor measurements, and the problems are no longer visibly obvious.
In this article, we investigate a generalized and unified approach for providing information about the data accuracy in sensor networks. Our approach is to allow the sensor nodes to develop a community of trust. We propose a framework where each sensor node maintains reputation metrics which both represent past behavior of other nodes and are used as an inherent aspect in predicting their future behavior. We employ a Bayesian formulation, specifically a beta reputation system, for the algorithm steps of reputation representation, updates, integration and trust evolution. This framework is available as a middleware service on motes and has been ported to two sensor network operating systems, TinyOS and SOS. We evaluate the efficacy of this framework using multiple contexts: (1) a lab-scale test bed of Mica2 motes, (2) Avrora simulations, and (3) real data sets collected from sensor network deployments in James Reserve.
A New Religious Movement in Singapore: Syncretism and Variation in the Sathya Sai Baba Movement
Authors: Pereira Shane 
Published: June 2008

AbstractThis ethnographic study of the Sathya Sai Baba Movement in Singapore situates itself within the sociological study of New Religious Movements (NRMs). Studies on the expansion of “cults” and NRMs are well documented, but little has been done to explore how such movements proceed after the initial foothold has been established in the host country. Patterns of interaction with the highly plural socio-ethnic and religious elements that exist in multicultural nations, as in Singapore, and the attendant social implications have not been sufficiently addressed. The Sai Baba movement preaches and practises ethno-religious ecumenism and allow adherents to maintain the religious affiliations and practices of their parent or current religion. This paper explores the nature of the Sathya Sai Baba Movement's religious framework and its apparent success in pluralistic Singapore by studying the impact of syncretism and ritual variations on the identity of the movement.
State in a State: Administration and Governance in a Thailand–Burma Border Town
Authors: Lee Sang Kook 
Published: June 2008

AbstractThis study investigates governance in the district of Mae Sot, located at the Thailand-Burma border. Unlike other places in Thailand, the enormous presence of non-Thais, particularly unauthorised migrants, makes Mae Sot unique in matters of administration and governance. This study examines the interactions of the various governing systems that exist in Mae Sot, including those of the Burmese, even though the Burmese do not have a proper legal status in the Thai district. The study asks if modern states can be conceptualised in terms of an isomorphism with territory, sovereignty and citizenship.
A Brief History of Western Sufism
Authors: Küçük Hülya 
Published: June 2008

AbstractSufism's popularity in the West is an issue known by everybody who is interested in it. It is certain that because of its tolerance of other religions and cultures, Sufism was welcomed among the Europeans who, through a variety of means, had had contact with it. This article intends to present a descriptive and representative historical overview of Western Sufism. It is also a probe in passing to understand the reasons for Western people's interest in Sufism. The Western Shadhiliyya and the Chistiyya in the West will occupy much more space in this work than the rest of the Sufi movements in the West, because of their pioneering role as the first Sufi movements introduced to the West. They paved way for or formed the background to later Sufi movements and facilitated their popularity in the West via their publications and conferences.
Beyond 'Women vs. Children' or 'WomenandChildren': Engendering Childhood and Reformulating Motherhood
Authors: Burman Erica 
Published: June 2008

AbstractThe child rights movement has typically fallen foul of both feminists and antifeminists in its renderings of the relations between women and children. This article attempts to move the debate forward to consider the relations between women's rights and children's rights as neither adversarial, nor equivalent, but as allied – albeit as necessarily structured in tension and contest. It illuminates why and how such a situation has arisen, and identifies some key challenges for the adequate formulation of women's and children's interests and positionings. This conceptual analysis is given specific focus by taking two key arenas of intervention – child abduction and the support of children in shelters for battered women – as particular contexts in which conceptualisations and policies around women and around children often come into conflict. Using these examples, arising from involvement in practical action research projects, new directions for reconfiguring prevailing understandings emerge, in particular by highlighting how gender and culture/racialisation function to structure discourses of childhood. While resolution of these tensions may be neither possible nor desirable, the paper illustrates the value of being clear about what is at stake in these contests in order to identify specific strategies for action.
Beyond Thermal Interaction between Ocean and Atmosphere: On the Extratropical Climate Variability due to the Wind-Induced SST*
Authors: Lee Dong Eun , Liu Zhengyu , Liu Yun 
Published: June 2008

Abstract
Prescribing sea surface temperature (SST) for the atmospheric general circulation models (GCM) may not lead to underestimation of the coupled variability. In this study, a set of SST-driven atmospheric GCM experiments, starting from slightly different multiple initial conditions, is performed. The SST used here is prepared by a coupled GCM, which has the same atmospheric GCM component as the AGCM used in the experiment with the prescribed SST. The results indicate that prescribing SST leads to underestimation of the coupled air temperature variance only in subtropics. Meanwhile, in midlatitudes, prescribing SST may result in the overestimation of the coupled air temperature variance, where the major role of ocean–atmosphere contrast is to provide damping for SST.
The simple stochastically driven coupled model is revisited with an extension to the direct wind-driven forcing for SST. In addition to the previous setup relying exclusively on the stochastic perturbation for air temperature, the ocean temperature is also forced by the pure random wind. By this extended model, it is speculated that the coupled air temperature variance can be overestimated by prescribing SST, depending on the sensitivity of SST to the wind-driven heat flux. The midlatitude is the most probable place for the overestimation since the wind-driven ocean dynamics can enhance the wind-driven surface heat flux due to the dominant zonal wind anomaly.
Methods for Exploring Spatial and Temporal Variability of Extreme Events in Climate Data
Authors: Coelho C. A. S. , Ferro C. A. T. , Stephenson D. B. , Steinskog D. J. 
Published: June 2008

AbstractThis study presents various statistical methods for exploring and summarizing spatial extremal properties in large gridpoint datasets. Extremal properties are inferred from the subset of gridpoint values that exceed sufficiently high, time-varying thresholds. A simple approach is presented for how to choose the thresholds so as to avoid sampling biases from nonstationary differential trends within the annual cycle. The excesses are summarized by estimating parameters of a flexible generalized Pareto model that can account for spatial and temporal variation in the excess distributions. The effect of potentially explanatory factors (e.g., ENSO) on the distribution of extremes can be easily investigated using this model. Smooth spatially pooled estimates are obtained by fitting the model over neighboring grid points while accounting for possible spatial variation across these points. Extreme value theory methods are also presented for how to investigate the temporal clustering and spatial dependency (teleconnections) of extremes. The methods are illustrated using Northern Hemisphere monthly mean gridded temperatures for June–August (JJA) summers from 1870 to 2005.