bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor Nuclear Translocator Gene Polymorphism in Patients With Recurrent Miscarriage
Authors: Sullivan Amy E. , Nelson Leesa , Frias Antonio E. , Porter T. Flint , Branch D. Wane , Silver Robert M. 
Published: December 2005

Objective  The human aryl hydrocarbon receptor nuclear translocator gene (ARNT) is crucial for embryonic development. Knockout of ARNT is embryonic lethal. We thus hypothesized that some cases of recurrent miscarriage (RM) may be due to a polymorphism in the ARNT gene.Methods  Polymerase chain reaction was used to compare the gene frequencies of a polymorphism in codon 511 of the ARNT gene in 170 women with idiopathic RM and 105 controls.Results  Using the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium calculation, the predicted ARNT genotype frequencies for the N511/N511, N511/D511, and D511/D511 genotypes were 0, 2, and 167 respectively. The observed frequencies were 0, 2, and 168 (NS). The N/511/D511 genotype was detected in 1.2% of cases and 2.8% of controls, and the D511/D511genotype was detected in 98.8% of cases and 97.2% of controls (NS).Conclusions  In our cohort of patients, the polymorphism in codon 511 of the ARNT gene is not associated with RM.
Upscaling of Hydraulic Conductivity and Telescopic Mesh Refinement
Authors: Walker Douglas D. , Gylling Björn , Selroos Jan‐Olof 
Published: December 2005

AbstractPerformance assessments of repositories for the underground disposal of nuclear fuel and waste include models of ground water flow and transport in the host rocks. Estimates of hydraulic conductivity, K, based on field measurements may require adjustment (upscaling) for use in numerical models, but the choice of upscaling approach can be complicated by the use of nested modeling, large‐scale fracture zones, and a high degree of heterogeneity. Four approaches to upscaling K are examined using a reference case based on exhaustive site data and an application of nested modeling to evaluate performance assessment of a waste repository. The upscaling approaches are evaluated for their effects on the flow balance between nested modeling domains and on simple measures of repository performance. Of the upscaling approaches examined in this study, the greatest consistency of boundary flows was achieved using the observed scale dependence for the rock domains, measured values from the large‐scale interference test for the conductor domain, and a semivariogram regularization based on the Moye model for packer test interpretation. Making the assumption that large fracture zones are two‐dimensional media results in the greatest changes to the median of travel time and improves the flow balance between the nested models. The uncertainty of upscaling methods apparently has a small impact on median performance measures, but a significant impact on the variances and earliest arrival times.
Regional Estimation of Total Recharge to Ground Water in Nebraska
Authors: Szilagyi Jozsef , Harvey F. Edwin , Ayers Jerry F. 
Published: December 2005

AbstractNaturally occurring long‐term mean annual recharge to ground water in Nebraska was estimated by a novel water‐balance approach. This approach uses geographic information systems (GIS) layers of land cover, elevation of land and ground water surfaces, base recharge, and the recharge potential in combination with monthly climatic data. Long‐term mean recharge > 140 mm per year was estimated in eastern Nebraska, having the highest annual precipitation rates within the state, along the Elkhorn, Platte, Missouri, and Big Nemaha River valleys where ground water is very close to the surface. Similarly high recharge values were obtained for the Sand Hills sections of the North and Middle Loup, as well as Cedar River and Beaver Creek valleys due to high infiltration rates of the sandy soil in the area. The westernmost and southwesternmost parts of the state were estimated to typically receive < 30 mm of recharge a year.
Mass and Flux Distributions from DNAPL Zones in Sandy Aquifers
Authors: Guilbeault Martin A. , Parker Beth L. , Cherry John A. 
Published: December 2005

AbstractAt three industrial sites in Ontario, New Hampshire, and Florida, tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE), released decades ago as dense nonaqueous phase liquids (DNAPLs), now form persistent source zones for dissolved contaminant plumes. These zones are suspended below the water table and above the bottoms of their respective, moderately homogeneous, unconfined sandy aquifers. Exceptionally detailed, depth‐discrete, ground water sampling was performed using a direct‐push sampler along cross sections of the dissolved‐phase plumes, immediately downgradient of these DNAPL source zones. The total plume PCE or TCE mass‐discharge through each cross section ranged between 15 and 31 kg/year. Vertical ground water sample spacing as small as 15 cm and lateral spacing typically between 1 and 3 m revealed small zones where maximum concentrations were between 1% and 61% of solubility. These local maxima are surrounded by much lower concentration zones. A spacing no larger than 15 to 30 cm was needed at some locations to identify high concentration zones, and aqueous VOC concentrations varied as much as four orders of magnitude across 30 cm vertical intervals. High‐resolution sampling at these sites showed that three‐quarters of the mass‐discharge occurs within 5% to 10% of the plume cross sectional areas. The extreme spatial variability of the mass‐discharge occurs even though the sand aquifers are nearly hydraulically homogeneous. Depth‐discrete field techniques such as those used in this study are essential for finding the small zones producing most of the mass‐discharge, which is important for assessing natural attenuation and designing remedial options.
Estimating Ground Water Recharge from Topography, Hydrogeology, and Land Cover
Authors: Cherkauer Douglas S. , Ansari Sajjad A. 
Published: December 2005

AbstractProper management of ground water resources requires knowledge of the rates and spatial distribution of recharge to aquifers. This information is needed at scales ranging from that of individual communities to regional. This paper presents a methodology to calculate recharge from readily available ground surface information without long‐term monitoring. The method is viewed as providing a reasonable, but conservative, first approximation of recharge, which can then be fine‐tuned with other methods as time permits.Stream baseflow was measured as a surrogate for recharge in small watersheds in southeastern Wisconsin. It is equated to recharge (R) and then normalized to observed annual precipitation (P). Regression analysis was constrained by requiring that the independent and dependent variables be dimensionally consistent. It shows that R/P is controlled by three dimensionless ratios: (1) infiltrating to overland water flux, (2) vertical to lateral distance water must travel, and (3) percentage of land cover in the natural state. The individual watershed properties that comprise these ratios are now commonly available in GIS data bases.The empirical relationship for predicting R/P developed for the study watersheds is shown to be statistically viable and is then tested outside the study area and against other methods of calculating recharge. The method produces values that agree with baseflow separation from streamflow hydrographs (to within 15% to 20%), ground water budget analysis (4%), well hydrograph analysis (12%), and a distributed‐parameter watershed model calibrated to total streamflow (18%). It has also reproduced the temporal variation over 5 yr observed at a well site with an average error < 12%.
Grid Resolution Study of Ground Water Flow and Transport
Authors: Bower Kathleen M. , Gable Carl W. , Zyvoloski George A. 
Published: December 2005

AbstractThree‐dimensional grids representing a heterogeneous, ground water system are generated at 10 different resolutions in support of a site‐scale flow and transport modeling effort. These grids represent hydrostratigraphy near Yucca Mountain, Nevada, consisting of 18 stratigraphic units with contrasting fluid flow and transport properties. The grid generation method allows the stratigraphy to be modeled by numerical grids of different resolution so that comparison studies can be performed to test for grid quality and determine the resolution required to resolve geologic structure and physical processes such as fluid flow and solute transport. The process of generating numerical grids with appropriate property distributions from geologic conceptual models is automated, thus making the entire process easy to implement with fewer user‐induced errors. The series of grids of various resolutions are used to assess the level at which increasing resolution no longer influences the flow and solute transport results. Grid resolution is found to be a critical issue for ground water flow and solute transport. The resolution required in a particular instance is a function of the feature size of the model, the intrinsic properties of materials, the specific physics of the problem, and boundary conditions. The asymptotic nature of results related to flow and transport indicate that for a hydrologic model of the heterogeneous hydrostratigraphy under Yucca Mountain, a horizontal grid spacing of 600 m and vertical grid spacing of 40 m resolve the hydrostratigraphic model with sufficient precision to accurately model the hypothetical flow and solute transport to within 5% of the value that would be obtained with much higher resolution.
Computer-Assisted Pattern Recognition of Autoantibody Results
Authors: Binder Steven R. , Genovese Mark C. , Merrill Joan T. , Morris Robert I. , Metzger Allan L. 
Published: December 2005

ABSTRACT

Immunoassay-based anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) screens are increasingly used in the initial evaluation of autoimmune disorders, but these tests offer no “pattern information” comparable to the information from indirect fluorescence assay-based screens. Thus, there is no indication of “next steps” when a positive result is obtained. To improve the utility of immunoassay-based ANA screening, we evaluated a new method that combines a multiplex immunoassay with a
k
nearest neighbor (kNN) algorithm for computer-assisted pattern recognition. We assembled a training set, consisting of 1,152 sera from patients with various rheumatic diseases and nondiseased patients. The clinical sensitivity and specificity of the multiplex method and algorithm were evaluated with a test set that consisted of 173 sera collected at a rheumatology clinic from patients diagnosed by using standard criteria, as well as 152 age- and sex-matched sera from presumably healthy individuals (sera collected at a blood bank). The test set was also evaluated with a HEp-2 cell-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Both the ELISA and multiplex immunoassay results were positive for 94% of the systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients. The kNN algorithm correctly proposed an SLE pattern for 84% of the antibody-positive SLE patients. For patients with no connective tissue disease, the multiplex method found fewer positive results than the ELISA screen, and no disease was proposed by the kNN algorithm for most of these patients. In conclusion, the automated algorithm could identify SLE patterns and may be useful in the identification of patients who would benefit from early referral to a specialist, as well as patients who do not require further evaluation.
Gamma Interferon Is Dispensable for Neopterin Production In Vivo
Authors: Sghiri R. , Feinberg J. , Thabet F. , Dellagi K. , Boukadida J. , Ben Abdelaziz A. , Casanova J. L. , Barbouche M. R. 
Published: December 2005

ABSTRACTPrevious studies have indicated that neopterin is synthesized in vitro by human monocyte-derived macrophages and dendritic cells upon stimulation with gamma interferon (IFN-γ). Neopterin production under specific conditions in vitro has also been obtained upon stimulation with IFN-α and/or IFN-β. However, it is unknown if any IFN-γ-independent neopterin synthesis is possible in vivo. In the present study we investigated the serum neopterin concentrations in patients affected by the syndrome of Mendelian susceptibility to mycobacterial disease (MSMD). Indeed, this syndrome is characterized by deeply impaired or absent IFN-γ production or function due to severe mutations in molecules involved in IFN-γ/interleukin-12 (IL-12)/IL-23-dependent pathway. Serum neopterin levels were measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in 27 patients with MSMD. We found that serum neopterin levels are elevated in the complete absence of IFN-γ activity due either to a complete deficiency of its receptor or to deleterious mutations of IL-12 or its receptor. These data clearly indicate that, as reported from in vitro studies, other stimuli are able to induce neopterin synthesis in vivo. Consequently, neopterin cannot be used as means of diagnosis of MSMD due to IFN-γ-, IL-12-, and IL-23-dependent pathway defects.
Unidirectional Suppression of
Anaplasma phagocytophilum
Genotypes in Infected Lambs
Authors: Stuen Snorre , Dahl Hilde , Bergström Karin , Moum Truls 
Published: December 2005

ABSTRACT

Five-month-old lambs were simultaneously infected with different doses of two 16S rRNA genetic variants of
Anaplasma phagocytophilum
and thereafter followed for clinical observation and blood sampling. The result of the study indicates a unidirectional suppression of genotypes in infected lambs, at least during a certain period of an
A. phagocytophilum
infection.
Islam and Secularization
Authors: Zubaida Sami 
Published: December 2005

AbstractThis article looks at the relationship of the religious and the secular from a historical perspective. Contrasting historical facts, including a traditional religious consciousness, and the political religious language of recent times, it is shown that there is no natural given boundary separating the two dimensions. Instead, the whole discussion derives from an advanced state of a secular mind. In nineteenth and the twentieth century thought in institutions in the Middle East, for example, in the fields of law, education, administration and mass culture, there was experienced an irreversible process of change towards secularity. This process was facilitated by the co-existence and intersection of the religious and the secular. The dichotomy of the religious and the secular emerged within popularized fundamentalism, which itself has to be seen as a fruit of the secularization process encouraging religion to turn into a matter of politics and "social engineering".
Negotiating Identity in Malaysia: Multi-Cultural Society, Islam, Theatre and Tourism
Authors: Yaapar Salleh 
Published: December 2005

AbstractIdentity is something quite stable but is also malleable and flexible. Although it is often defended, it is also continuously contested and negotiated. This is even more so for communities in multi-ethnic, multi-cultural countries emerging from colonial experiences. This essay will focus on the negotiation of identity in Malaysia, involving historical and present-day relations between the Malay-Muslim majority and the rest of the citizens of the country. The discussion will be made with specific reference to Islam, multi-cultural society, literature/theatre and tourism. It will show that up to the present, national identity, as more or less an assemblage of a set of markers and values, is still an elusive notion. It is still being negotiated in different domains of life, including literature, theatre and tourism, and probably will continue to be negotiated for sometime to come. The process of negotiation is a painful one. Negotiation among ethnic groups requires a degree of openness and tolerance. It involves the authorities on the one hand, and the people of various ethnic groups on the other in the difficult search for a commonly accepted parameter or basic constituents.
Making Sense of the Plural-Religious Past and the Modern-Secular Present of the Islamic Malay World and Malaysia
Authors:   Shamsul
Published: December 2005

AbstractThis essay is a brief survey of some fundamental aspects of Islam and Muslims in the Islamic Malay world and Malaysia. Ethnic, linguistic and cultural variation is the norm in the region. In addition, the region is heir to Hindu and Buddhist traditions and also to three European colonial systems of government and administration (Portuguese, Dutch and British). Islam is but one among these. In some aspects of life it has been considerably reformulated by them. Thus, to understand Islam in the Malay world and Malaysia, one must begin with data from the area rather than with some Middle Eastern and theological formulations of Islam. Yet, we have to recognize that Islam is a universal theology originating from the Arabic Middle East. Therefore, a more informed analysis and understanding of Islam and Muslims in the Malay world, Malaysia and in their contemporary articulations must be "embedded" in the historical reality of both the plurality and plural society templates that have become the "moulds" of current secular modern social life in the region.
The Construction and Deconstruction of Secularism as an Ideology in Contemporary Muslim Thought
Authors: Masud Muhammad Khalid 
Published: December 2005

AbstractThis article starts with a sketch of the encounters and experiences of modern secularism in four areas of the Islamic world (Turkey, Arab world, South Asia and Southeast Asia); these point to the diverse conditions and constructions that have become central issues of regional and trans-regional discourse: laizism through reform, nationalism through decolonization, Islamic nationalism through state formation, and tolerance through traditional multi-ethnic environments. In analysing the basic writings of five exemplary modern Muslim thinkers, it is shown that modern Islamic thought, tied to the idea of mutual exclusive ideological constructions of secularism and Islamism, remains ambiguous while at the same time facing the factual unfolding of secularism in Muslim countries: the works of Mawdudi contain absolute denial of secularism; al-Qaradawi argues for the strict opposition and separation of the secular and the religious; al-Attas denies that Western processes of religious secularization are applicable to the development of Islam. On the other hand, Iqbal and Rahman, although maintaining a clear distinction between the secular and the religious, point to coinciding dimensions of religious and secular dimensions in modern political and social life. The reflection of the secular and the religious is highly shaped by historical and political influences as well as by ideologization, thus creating obstacles for fruitful conceptual reconstructions of the given dimensions of the coincidence of both — Islam and the secular conditions of modern society.
The Blind Eye and the Strong Arm: The Colonial Archive and the Imbrication of Knowledge and Power in Mid-Nineteenth Century Java
Authors: Knight G. Roger 
Published: December 2005

AbstractThe argument of this paper relates to on-going debates about the acquisition of knowledge and the enhancement of power in the context of European empire building during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It seeks to locate these debates in the specific context of the Netherlands Indies and its key island of Java in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, at a time when the Dutch colonial power attempted a major fact-finding investigation of the island's sugar industry, and of the social and economic circumstances of "peasant" Java, in which colonial sugar manufacturers operated. It argues that in this particular instance, the attempt to assemble colonial knowledge exposed the potentially counter-productive aspects of such projects. It highlights the limitations of colonial knowledge implicit in the institutional structure of colonial power, and the extent to which, in the circumstances of mid-nineteenth century Java, the blind eye was the necessary corollary of the strong arm. This was because power rested on a carefully and consciously circumscribed quest for knowledge, which might easily be upset by too keen an investigation of the social and economic circumstances of the countryside.
The Euro-Islamic Roots of Secularity: A Difficult Equation
Authors: Salvatore Armando 
Published: December 2005

AbstractThis article probes into the issue of secularity as a main node of the historic construction of modern power and the modern state in Europe. It builds an interpretative arch ranging from the Spanish Reconquista, stretching through the European Wars of Religion and the resistance to the "Turkish Threat" of the encroaching Ottoman armies, and reaching into the contemporary predicament of the presence of a growing population of Muslim background in the key states of Western Europe, notably those involved in the Reconquista, the resistance to the "Turkish Threat", and in the Wars of Religion. The analysis matches the interpretation of these historical traumata with philosophical and sociological reflections, from Spinoza and Vico to Asad and Casanova. The conclusions point to the inherent ambivalence and arbitrary character of the modern secular distinction between religion and politics. They suggest that the philosophical utopia of secularity is still an open issue for the European states and that the growing presence of Islam in Europe helps give evidence of the limits of the secular arrangements reigning in the continent thus far.
Aqueous and solid-phase speciation of arsenic in Cornish soils
Authors: Hutton C. , Bryce D. W. , Russeau W. , Glass H. J. , Jenkin L. E. T. , Corns W. T. , Stockwell P. B. 
Published: December 2005

AbstractCornwall (UK) has suffered extensive arsenic contamination due to the historic mining and processing of mineral ores. Standard procedures for contaminated land risk assessment (DEFRA and Environment Agency, 2002a) are probably unworkable in Cornwall, with a very large number of sites classified as contaminated by arsenic. Methods of measuring the speciation and mobility of arsenic are essential for effective and rapid risk assessments of arsenic contamination.Three clusters of lysimeters were installed in three different areas of an arsenic-contaminated Cornish site. A novel phosphoric acid microwave extraction technique was applied to the soils removed from the lysimeter holes; HPLC-HG-AFS analysis showed the majority of solid-phase arsenic to be arsenate (AsV). Pore waters obtained from the lysimeters showed variable, relatively low levels of arsenite (AsIII) and arsenate (AsV) to be present (<1–129 μg l–1). Less toxic arsenate predominated in most pore waters, with the presence of minor amounts of arsenite suggesting heterogeneous redox conditions. Pore-water arsenic concentrations were strongly positively related to solid-phase arsenate concentrations.The use of techniques that assess the speciation of arsenic both in the solid and aqueous phases of a soil provides important information about the mobility of arsenic. The methodology presented in this paper may offer a novel basis for risk assessments of other contaminated sites.