bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Identification of in vitro phosphorylation sites in the Arabidopsis thaliana somatic embryogenesis receptor‐like kinases
Authors: Karlova Rumyana , Boeren Sjef , van Dongen Walter , Kwaaitaal Mark , Aker Jose , Vervoort Jacques , de Vries Sacco 
Published: December 2008

AbstractThe Arabidopsis thaliana somatic embryogenesis receptor‐like kinase (SERK) family consists of five leucine‐rich repeat receptor‐like kinases (LRR‐RLKs) with diverse functions such as brassinosteroid insensitive 1 (BRI1)‐mediated brassinosteroid perception, development and innate immunity. The autophosphorylation activity of the kinase domains of the five SERK proteins was compared and the phosphorylated residues were identified by LC‐MS/MS. Differences in autophosphorylation that ranged from high activity of SERK1, intermediate activities for SERK2 and SERK3 to low activity for SERK5 were noted. In the SERK1 kinase the C‐terminally located residue Ser‐562 controls full autophosphorylation activity. Activation loop phosphorylation, including that of residue Thr‐462 previously shown to be required for SERK1 kinase activity, was not affected. In vivo SERK1 phosphorylation was induced by brassinosteroids. Immunoprecipitation of CFP‐tagged SERK1 from plant extracts followed by MS/MS identified Ser‐303, Thr‐337, Thr‐459, Thr‐462, Thr‐463, Thr‐468, and Ser‐612 or Thr‐613 or Tyr‐614 as in vivo phosphorylation sites of SERK1. Transphosphorylation of SERK1 by the kinase domain of the main brassinosteroid receptor BRI1 occurred only on Ser‐299 and Thr‐462. This suggests both intra‐ and intermolecular control of SERK1 kinase activity. Conversely, BRI1 was transphosphorylated by the kinase domain of SERK1 on Ser‐887. BRI1 kinase activity was not required for interaction with the SERK1 receptor in a pull down assay.
‘DIVINE KINGS’: SEX, DEATH AND ANTHROPOLOGY IN INTER-WAR EAST/CENTRAL AFRICA
Authors: VAUGHAN MEGAN 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThe elaborate mortuary rites of the Chitimukulu (the paramount chief of the Bemba people) attracted the attention of both colonial administrators and anthropologists in inter-war Northern Rhodesia. This paper examines the political and symbolic significance of these rites before turning to an analysis of accounts, by the anthropologist Audrey Richards, of the deaths of two ‘commoners’ in the 1930s. The paper argues that chiefly power resided less in the threat of death which was enacted spectacularly in the Chitimukulu's mortuary rituals than in the promise to create and protect life, located in the practices of quotidian life. This promise of the creation and protection of life was being progressively undermined by the conditions of colonial rule.
‘THE CHILD OF DEATH’: PERSONAL NAMES AND PARENTAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS MORTALITY IN BUNYORO, WESTERN UGANDA, 1900–2005
Authors: DOYLE SHANE 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTTraditional sources tell us relatively little about how Africans perceived death in the past. In some societies, however, changing attitudes towards mortality can be identified from the names which were given to babies. In Bunyoro almost a third of the names that were given during the colonial period referred to death. The declining frequency of death-related names from the 1940s offers significant insights into the impact of Christianity, education and population growth on the Nyoro's worldview. That death-related names did not re-emerge in the era of AIDS is a significant indication of how the pandemic has been viewed in western Uganda.
Infant mortality in the Nordic countries, 1780–1930
Authors: EDVINSSON SÖREN , GARÐARSDÓTTIR ÓLÖF , THORVALDSEN GUNNAR 
Published: December 2008

ABSTRACTThis article summarizes aspects of the decline in infant mortality in the five Nordic countries. During the nineteenth century, both the levels of infant mortality and its development differed among the Nordic countries. At an early date, Denmark, Norway and Sweden stood out as the countries with the lowest levels in Europe whereas levels of infant mortality in Iceland and Finland were comparatively high. Within the countries there were large regional differences that often crossed national borders. Artificial feeding characterized most of the areas with the highest infant mortality. Within the different countries the high infant mortality came to be seen as a problem during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The spread of information, midwives as agents of change and high literacy are factors that have been proven important in explaining the subsequent decline.
On the Phonology of Icelandic Prespiration
Authors: Thráisson Höskuldur 
Published: December 2008

This paper presents a new phonological analysis of preaspiration in Icelandic. Its purpose is to get as close to the phonetic facts as possible while capturing at the same time the regular phonological character of Icelandic preaspiraton.The paper is organized as follows: Section 1 briefly reviews some phonetic descriptions of preaspiration. Section 2 shows why preaspiration must be considered an active phonological rule in Modern Icelandic. Section 3 presents an informal description of what the preaspiration rule has to do. Section 4 gives both an autosegmental and a more conventional generative phonological statement of the rule. Section 5 gives arguments for the autosegmental analysis. Section 6 is a Conclusion, followed by an Appendix on preaspiration in other languages.
NP-Internal Chains in Norwegian
Authors: Fiva Toril 
Published: December 2008

In Norwegian, these two types of constructions expressing an NP with a (prenominal) possessor exist:(i) Pers bil ‘Peter's car’(ii) Per sin bil Peter his, refl. car ‘Peter's car’I argue that the s in (i) is not a case affix, but rather a variant of sin. Furthermore, I discuss how [Per] in (ii) assigned Case, and the fact that Per and sin apparently share a theta-role. I suggest that they constitute a chain in (ii), to which Case and a theta-role is assigned.I shall compare the definition of “chain” in Chomsky 1981 to the modified definition of Kayne 1981. The modified definition, together with other principles suggested by Kayne 1981/1983, not only permits our analysis of (ii), but also provides interesting predictions about this construction, and indirectly about the lack of it in a related language, Icelandic.
Word of Minos: the Minoan Contribution to Mycenaean Greek and the Linguistic Geography of the Bronze Age Aegean
Authors: Renfrew Colin 
Published: December 2008

The question of the supposedly pre-Greek language or languages of the Aegean, in its wider historical and cultural context, has not been systematically addressed since the decipherment of the Linear B script, other than in the philological studies of DA. Hester. Here it is argued that the time is ripe for a new synthesis between the linguistic and the cultural evidence. The language of the Minoan Linear A script, that is (it is here assumed) the Minoan language of the palaces, is here identified as making the principal contribution to the so-called ‘pre-Greek’ vocabulary of the Greek language, thus constituting not a linguistic substratum of earlier date but an adstratum, which developed during their co-existence in the Aegean during the Bronze Age. This may be seen as the linguistic component in the ‘Versailles effect’ of Minoan palatial influence within the Aegean, which reached its apogee in the Late Bronze 1 period, a view anticipated in some respects in the work of some earlier writers notably G. Glotz.Such an approach focuses attention more clearly on the intellectual and ideological contributions of Minoan culture to the emerging Mycenaean civilization, rather than on the piecemeal acquisition of material items, without however assigning a secondary or subordinate role to the mainland communities in their own transition towards state society. One important consequence of the argument is to diminish (or even eliminate) the case for a significant chronologically pre-Greek element in the Greek language. One principal argument against the very early, probably Neolithic arrival of proto-Greek (or proto-Indo-European) speakers into mainland Greece is thereby removed. The resulting simplification in the linguistic picture of the Bronze Age Aegean proposed here carries implications also for that of western Anatolia and for the great antiquity there of the Luwian language. It opens questions also about the affinities of the presumed Anatolianancestor of the Minoan (or proto-Minoan) language.
On the deceleration of cometary fragments in aerogel
Authors: Coulson S.G. 
Published: December 2008

AbstractDetermining the thermal history of the cometary grains captured by the Stardust mission presents a difficult problem. We consider two simplified models for the deceleration of hypervelocity particles captured in aerogel; both models assume a velocity squared drag force. The first model assumes that the mass of the particle remains constant during capture and the second that mass is lost due to ablation of the particle through interactions with the aerogel. It is found that the constant mass model adequately reproduces the track lengths, found from experiments by Hörz et al. in 2008, that impacted aluminium oxide spheres into aerogel at hypervelocities ~6 km s−1.Deceleration in aerogel heats volatile particles such as organic ices to high temperatures greater than 1,000 K, for durations of ~1 μs: more than sufficient to completely ablate the particle. Refractory particles also experience significant heating greater than 2500 K, greater than the particle's melting point, over similar timescales. This suggests that the fragments recovered to Earth by the Stardust mission were considerably altered by hypersonic capture by aerogel, and so limits the amount of information that can be obtained regarding the formation of mineral and organic particles within Kuiper Belt comets.
Prudent investors: the asset allocation of public pension plans
Authors: WELLER CHRISTIAN E. , WENGER JEFFREY B. 
Published: December 2008

AbstractAfter 2000, the vast majority of defined benefit (DB) pension plans encountered a decrease in their funding ratios, largely due to a drop in asset prices. It is possible that public sector pension plans may have acted imprudently by chasing returns, once they encountered underfunding. We identify four indicators for DB plans' imprudent investment behavior: no portfolio rebalancing, employer conflicts of interest, trustee conflicts of interest, and failure to implement best investment practices. To see if public sector pension plans rebalance their portfolios, we use data from the Federal Reserve's Flow of Funds, dating from 1952 to 2007. To test for the remaining three hypotheses, we use data from the Census' State and Local Government Employee Retirement Systems data base, where consistent data for state and local government plans are available from 1993 to 2005. Our results suggest that there is no evidence that public sector plans systematically engaged in imprudent investment behavior and that this did not systematically differ after 2000 from the earlier period.
Estimating Agricultural Nitrous Oxide Emissions
Authors: Del Grosso Stephen J. , Wirth Tom , Ogle Stephen M. , Parton William J. 
Published: December 2008

Emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), a potent greenhouse gas, tend to be underestimated by standard methods of quantifi cation provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [IPCC, 2006], recent research suggests. Better quantification of agricultural N2O emissions improves greenhouse gas inventories, allows for better evaluation of the environmental impacts of different cropping systems, and increases the understanding of the nitrogen (N) cycle in general. Proper quantifi cation of N2O emissions is particularly important in the context of calculating net greenhouse gas emissions from biofuel cropping systems because these emissions offset the greenhouse gas benefits of displacing fossil fuel and can even lead to biofuel systems being a net greenhouse gas source [Crutzen et al., 2008].The global warming potential of N2O is approximately 300 times that of carbon dioxide, and N2O emissions represent approximately 6% of the global anthropogenic greenhouse gas source [IPCC, 2007]. N2O also contributes to stratospheric ozone destruction. N2O is produced in soils through the microbial processes of nitrifi cation and denitrification. Soil water content, temperature, texture, and carbon availability infl uence N2O emissions, but the strongest correlate is usually N inputs to the system, especially at large scales [Stehfest and Bouwman, 2006]. In addition to direct emissions, N inputs to agricultural soils also contribute to N2O emissions indirectly [IPCC, 2006] when nitrate that has leached or run off from soil is converted to N2O via aquatic denitrifi cation and when volatilized non‐N2O N‐oxides and ammonia are redeposited on soils and converted to N2O.
Towards chunk-based translation memories
Authors: Colominas Carme 
Published: December 2008

Most of the current Translation Memory systems are based on segments determined by marks that in most cases correspond to a complete sentence. The problem of complete sentence matching is that examples are often excluded from the matching candidates even though they probably contain one or more useful sub-segments that could be helpful to the translation.
In view of these limitations, some proposals have been made in the literature regarding the possibility of building Translation Memory systems that operate “below” the sentence level, that is to say, at a sub-sentential level. Existing work demonstrates that sub-sentential segmentation of Translation Memories clearly shows a significantly best recall with respect to sentential.segmentation.

Accepting the benefits of sub-sentential segmentation of Translation Memories, in this paper we consider different possibilities of sub sentential segmentation and attempt an evaluation of the recall (covering sequences of chunks) and the precision (usability of these chunks) obtained by noun phrase chunk segmentation.Our experiments show that pre- or postmodified NPs turn out to be especially adequate for pretranslation tasks tasks as they show a minimum cost by a maximum gain.. In other words, their translation is on the one side not trivial as it often involves structural divergences between language and at the same time they are context independent enough that they can be reused without changes in most cases.
No creativity in legal translation?
Authors: Pommer Sieglinde E. 
Published: December 2008

Whereas translating is generally considered to be a creative activity, mentioning this in the context of legal translation is, rather paradoxically, widely frowned upon despite the fact that the ­incongruency of legal systems makes finding exact equivalents particularly difficult in legal texts.
Convinced that in fact translating the law requires taking insightful judgments, detecting interesting alternatives, coming up with novel ways to communicate ideas, and finding useful ­solutions to complex problems, the author examines the dynamic concept of creativity and redefines its meaning with regard to legal translation.
A lower bound for the Chung-Diaconis-Graham random process
Authors: Hildebrand Martin 
Published: December 2008

Chung, Diaconis, and Graham considered random processes of the form

X

n
+
1

=

a
n

X
n

+

b
n

(
mod

p
)

X_{n+1}=a_nX_n+b_n\pmod p

where

p
p

is odd,

X
0

=
0

X_0=0

,

a
n

=
2

a_n=2

always, and

b
n

b_n

are i.i.d. for

n
=
0
,
1
,
2
,
…

n=0,1,2,\dots

. In this paper, we show that if

P
(

b
n

=
−
1
)
=
P
(

b
n

=
0
)
=
P
(

b
n

=
1
)
=
1

/

3

P(b_n=-1)=P(b_n=0)=P(b_n=1)=1/3

, then there exists a constant

c
>
1

c>1

such that

c

log
2

⁡
p

c\log _2p

steps are not enough to make

X
n

X_n

get close to being uniformly distributed on the integers mod

p
p

.
Multiples of hypercyclic operators
Authors: Badea Catalin , Grivaux Sophie , Müller Vladimir 
Published: December 2008

We give a negative answer to a question of Prăjitură by showing that there exists an invertible bilateral weighted shift

T
T

on

ℓ
2

(

Z

)

\ell _2(\mathbb {Z})

such that

T
T

and

3
T

3T

are hypercyclic but

2
T

2T

is not. Moreover, any

G
δ

G_\delta

set

M
⊆
(
0
,
∞
)

M \subseteq (0,\infty )

which is bounded and bounded away from zero can be realized as

M
=
{
t
>
0
∣
t
T

is hypercyclic

}

M=\{t>0 \mid tT \textrm { is hypercyclic}\}

for some invertible operator

T
T

acting on a Hilbert space.
On the localization principle for the automorphisms of pseudoellipsoids
Authors: Landucci Mario , Spiro Andrea 
Published: December 2008

We show that Alexander’s extendibility theorem for a local automorphism of the unit ball is valid also for a local automorphism

f
f

of a pseudoellipsoid

E

(

p
1

,
…
,

p

k

)

n

=
def

{
z
∈

C

n

:

∑

j
=
1

n
−
k

|

z
j

|

2

+

|

z

n
−
k
+
1

|

2

p
1

+
⋯
+

|

z
n

|

2

p

k

>
1
}

\mathcal {E}^n_{(p_1, \dots , p_{k})}\overset {\text {def}}{=} \{ z \in \mathbb {C}^n : \sum _{j= 1}^{n - k}|z_j|^2 + |z_{n-k+1}|^{2 p_1} + \dots + |z_n|^{2 p_{k}} > 1\}

, provided that

f
f

is defined on a region

U

⊂

E

(
p
)

n

\mathcal {U} \subset \mathcal {E}^n_{(p)}

such that: i)

∂

U

∩
∂

E

(
p
)

n

\partial \mathcal {U} \cap \partial \mathcal {E}^n_{(p)}

contains an open set of strongly pseudoconvex points; ii)

U

∩
{

z
i

=
0
}
≠
∅

\mathcal {U}\cap \{ z_i = 0 \} \neq \emptyset

for any

n
−
k
+
1
≤
i
≤
n

n-k +1 \leq i \leq n

. By the counterexamples we exhibit, such hypotheses can be considered as optimal.
Can sugars be produced from fatty acids? A test case for pathway analysis tools
Authors: de Figueiredo Luis F. , Schuster Stefan , Kaleta Christoph , Fell David A. 
Published: December 2008

Abstract
Motivation: In recent years, several methods have been proposed for determining metabolic pathways in an automated way based on network topology. The aim of this work is to analyse these methods by tackling a concrete example relevant in biochemistry. It concerns the question whether even-chain fatty acids, being the most important constituents of lipids, can be converted into sugars at steady state. It was proved five decades ago that this conversion using the Krebs cycle is impossible unless the enzymes of the glyoxylate shunt (or alternative bypasses) are present in the system. Using this example, we can compare the various methods in pathway analysis.
Results: Elementary modes analysis (EMA) of a set of enzymes corresponding to the Krebs cycle, glycolysis and gluconeogenesis supports the scientific evidence showing that there is no pathway capable of converting acetyl-CoA to glucose at steady state. This conversion is possible after the addition of isocitrate lyase and malate synthase (forming the glyoxylate shunt) to the system. Dealing with the same example, we compare EMA with two tools based on graph theory available online, PathFinding and Pathway Hunter Tool. These automated network generating tools do not succeed in predicting the conversions known from experiment. They sometimes generate unbalanced paths and reveal problems identifying side metabolites that are not responsible for the carbon net flux. This shows that, for metabolic pathway analysis, it is important to consider the topology (including bimolecular reactions) and stoichiometry of metabolic systems, as is done in EMA.
Contact: ldpf@minet.uni-jena.de; schuster@minet.uni-jena.de
Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Systematic review: the extra‐oesophageal symptoms of gastro‐oesophageal reflux disease in children
Authors: TOLIA V. , VANDENPLAS Y. 
Published: December 2008

SummaryBackground  Extra‐oesophageal symptoms are thought to be common, atypical symptoms of gastro‐oesophageal reflux disease (GERD) in children.Aim  To investigate the prevalence of GERD in children with extra‐oesophageal symptoms or of extra‐oesophageal symptoms in children with GERD, and the effect of GERD therapies on extra‐oesophageal symptoms.Methods  A systematic review of articles in PubMed and EMBASE.Results  We identified 18 relevant articles. The pooled weighted average prevalence of GERD in asthmatic children was 23%, compared with 4% in healthy controls from the same five studies. The majority of studies evaluating the relationship between apparent life‐threatening event (ALTE) and GERD did not suggest a causal relationship. Seven studies reported that respiratory symptoms, sinusitis and dental erosion were significantly more prevalent in children with GERD than in controls. Data from pharmacotherapeutic trials were inconclusive and provided no support for a causal relationship between GERD and extra‐oesophageal symptoms.Conclusions  Possible associations exist between GERD and asthma, pneumonia, bronchiectasis, ALTE, laryngotracheitis, sinusitis and dental erosion, but causality or temporal association were not established. Moreover, the paucity of studies, small sample sizes and varying disease definitions did not allow firm conclusions to be drawn. Most trials of GERD therapies showed no improvement in extra‐oesophageal symptoms in children.
Suppression of allergic airway inflammation in a mouse model by Der p2 recombined BCG
Authors: Ou‐Yang Hai‐Feng , Hu Xing‐Bin , Ti Xin‐Yu , Shi Jie‐Ran , Li Shu‐Jun , Qi Hao‐Wen , Wu Chang‐Gui 
Published: December 2008

SummaryAllergic asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease mediated by T helper (Th)2 cell immune responses. Currently, immunotherapies based on both immune deviation and immune suppression, including the development of recombinant mycobacteria as immunoregulatory vaccines, are attractive treatment strategies for asthma. In our previous studies, we created a genetically recombinant form of bacille Calmette–Guerin (rBCG) that expressed Der p2 of house dust mites and established that it induced a shift from a Th2 response to a Th1 response in naive mice. However, it is unclear whether rBCG could suppress allergic airway inflammation in a mouse model. In this article we report that rBCG dramatically inhibited airway inflammation, eosinophilia, mucus production and mast cell degranulation in allergic mice. Analysis of interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ) and interleukin‐4 (IL‐4) levels in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and lung tissue revealed that the suppression was associated with a shift from a Th2 response to a Th1 response. At the same time, rBCG induced a CD4+ CD25+ Foxp3+ T‐cell subtype that could suppress the proliferation of Th2 effector cells in vitro in an antigen‐specific manner. Moreover, suppression of CD4+ CD25+ T cells could be adoptively transferred. Thus, our results demonstrate that rBCG induces both generic and specific immune responses. The generic immune response is associated with a shift from a Th2 to a Th1 cytokine response, whereas the specific immune response against Der p2 appears to be related to the expansion of transforming growth factor‐β (TGF‐β)‐producing CD4+ CD25+ Foxp3+ regulatory T cells. rBCG can suppress asthmatic airway inflammation through both immune deviation and immune suppression and may be a feasible, efficient immunotherapy for asthma.