bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Mimicking the Plant Cell Interior under Water Stress by Macromolecular Crowding: Disordered Dehydrin Proteins Are Highly Resistant to Structural Collapse
Authors: Mouillon Jean-Marie , Eriksson Sylvia K. , Harryson Pia 
Published: October 2008

AbstractThe dehydrins are a class of drought-induced proteins in plants that lack a fixed three-dimensional structure. Their specific molecular action, as well as the reason for their disordered character, is as yet poorly understood. It has been speculated, however, that the dehydrins are tuned to acquire a biologically active structure only under the conditions in which they normally function (i.e. upon dehydration). To test this hypothesis, we here investigate the effect of reduced water content and macromolecular crowding on three dehydrins from Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). As a simplistic model for mimicking cellular dehydration, we used polyethylene glycol, glycerol, and sugars that plants naturally employ as compatible solutes (i.e. sucrose and glucose). Macromolecular crowding was induced by the large polysaccharides Ficoll and dextran. The results show that the dehydrins are remarkably stable in their disordered state and are only modestly affected by the solvent alterations. A notable exception is the dehydrin Cor47, which shows a small, intrinsic increase in helical structure at high concentrations of osmolytes. We also examined the effect of phosphorylation but found no evidence that such posttranslational modifications of the dehydrin sequences modulate their structural response to osmolytes and crowding agents. These results suggest that the dehydrins are highly specialized proteins that have evolved to maintain their disordered character under conditions in which unfolded states of several globular proteins would tend to collapse.
TransgenicArabidopsisPlants Expressing the Type 1 Inositol 5-Phosphatase Exhibit Increased Drought Tolerance and Altered Abscisic Acid Signaling
Authors: Perera Imara Y. , Hung Chiu-Yueh , Moore Candace D. , Stevenson-Paulik Jill , Boss Wendy F. 
Published: October 2008

AbstractThe phosphoinositide pathway and inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate (InsP3) are implicated in plant responses to stress. To determine the downstream consequences of altered InsP3-mediated signaling, we generated transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants expressing the mammalian type I inositol polyphosphate 5-phosphatase (InsP 5-ptase), which specifically hydrolyzes soluble inositol phosphates and terminates the signal. Rapid transient Ca2+ responses to a cold or salt stimulus were reduced by ∼30% in these transgenic plants. Drought stress studies revealed, surprisingly, that the InsP 5-ptase plants lost less water and exhibited increased drought tolerance. The onset of the drought stress was delayed in the transgenic plants, and abscisic acid (ABA) levels increased less than in the wild-type plants. Stomatal bioassays showed that transgenic guard cells were less responsive to the inhibition of opening by ABA but showed an increased sensitivity to ABA-induced closure. Transcript profiling revealed that the drought-inducible ABA-independent transcription factor DREB2A and a subset of DREB2A-regulated genes were basally upregulated in the InsP 5-ptase plants, suggesting that InsP3 is a negative regulator of these DREB2A-regulated genes. These results indicate that the drought tolerance of the InsP 5-ptase plants is mediated in part via a DREB2A-dependent pathway and that constitutive dampening of the InsP3 signal reveals unanticipated interconnections between signaling pathways.
Histone H2B Monoubiquitination in the Chromatin ofFLOWERING LOCUS CRegulates Flowering Time inArabidopsis
Authors: Cao Ying , Dai Yan , Cui Sujuan , Ma Ligeng 
Published: October 2008

AbstractUbiquitination is one of many known histone modifications that regulate gene expression. Here, we examine the Arabidopsis thaliana homologs of the yeast E2 and E3 enzymes responsible for H2B monoubiquitination (H2Bub1). Arabidopsis has two E3 homologs (HISTONE MONOUBIQUITINATION1 [HUB1] and HUB2) and three E2 homologs (UBIQUITIN CARRIER PROTEIN [UBC1] to UBC3). hub1 and hub2 mutants show the loss of H2Bub1 and early flowering. By contrast, single ubc1, ubc2, or ubc3 mutants show no flowering defect; only ubc1 ubc2 double mutants, and not double mutants with ubc3, show early flowering and H2Bub1 defects. This suggests that ubc1 and ubc2 are redundant, but ubc3 is not involved in flowering time regulation. Protein interaction analysis showed that HUB1 and HUB2 interact with each other and with UBC1 and UBC2, as well as self-associating. The expression of FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) and its homologs was repressed in hub1, hub2, and ubc1 ubc2 mutant plants. Association of H2Bub1 with the chromatin of FLC clade genes depended on UBC1,2 and HUB1,2, as did the dynamics of methylated histones H3K4me3 and H3K36me2. The monoubiquitination of H2B via UBC1,2 and HUB1,2 represents a novel form of histone modification that is involved in flowering time regulation.
Patterns of institutional cooperation in R&D for Spanish innovative firms in the manufacturing and service sectors
Authors: López‐Fernández Concepción , Serrano‐Bedia Ana Ma , García‐Piqueres Gema 
Published: October 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence innovative firms in the manufacturing and service sectors in Spain to cooperate with research institutions in their innovation activities, and to examine the differences between types of firm.Design/methodology/approachA literature review is used to identify variables likely to influence a decision to cooperate with research institutions. A logit regression model is then used to verify the importance of those variables. The empirical study was carried out using 2,000 Spanish community innovation survey data. The study sample was 3,964 innovative service and manufacturing firms.FindingsIt is found that spillovers, R&D intensity, costs, risks and alternative cooperation strategies influence both manufacturing and service firms in the same way in their decision to cooperate with research institutions in R&D. However, the variables relating to firm size, being part of a larger group of companies and type of innovation were shown to affect manufacturing and service companies differently.Research limitations/implicationsThere was no control over the possible bias introduced into the study by not including firms that were not innovative. The variables included in the study were constrained by the availability of information supplied by the Technological Innovation Survey. And finally, the comparative study of innovative behaviour in manufacturing and services is exploratory in nature.Practical implicationsThe empirical results make it possible to identify a profile of the Spanish manufacturing and service firms that cooperate with research institutions.Originality/valueThis paper is original in exploring the differences between manufacturing and service firms in relation to the determinants of establishing institutional cooperation in R&D.
Rings and springs
Authors: Connolly Christine 
Published: October 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the applications and technological details of common components – rings and springs.Design/methodology/approachThe characteristics and applications of compression springs and then extension springs are investigated, and various finishing techniques are reported. Rings ranging from flat washers to snap‐rings, push‐on rings and Smalley rings are presented.FindingsThe humble spring may be surprisingly high‐tech, with applications in fuel injection, pacemakers and insulin delivery systems. Springs fulfill shock absorption duties as well as securing tasks, and can pre‐load fixtures to withstand thermal expansion and vibration. Retaining rings are used in heavy duty lifting gear and wind turbines, whilst simple washers elegantly combine wear protection with insulation in securing circuit boards.Originality/valueThe paper highlights the continuing development and surprising strengths of some simple components.
Automatic coating and fastening robot of space solar module to solar panel substrate
Authors: Fu Zhuang , Zou Liang , Wu Yuexin , Li Peibo , Zhao Yanzheng 
Published: October 2008

PurposeThis paper aims to propose an automatic coating and fastening robot (ACFR) of space solar module (SSM) to solar panel substrate.Design/methodology/approachDescribes the detailed manufacturing process of space solar cell arrays (SSCA), and gives an ACFR for SSM. Designs an automatic coating and fastening mechanism and a control system. Furthermore, establishes the “zigzag”, the “umbrella” and the Voronoi‐based “ring” path models of the coating path using syringes.FindingsThe robot is effective for the bubble‐free manufacture of SSCA in nonvacuum environment. The robot with three coating path models can control the thickness of adhesive layer on the back of SSM, and the fastening force to the solar panel substrate with high productivity. The experimental results have proved the validity of this robot in the SSCA's manufacture.Practical implicationsThe robot as a novel industrial equipment can improve the product quality and the reliability of SSCA to a certain extent.Originality/valueThe robot has potential applications in the SSCA assembly. It will change the traditional handworking status in the future.
Controlling the direction of “walkie” type forklifts and pallet jacks on sloping ground
Authors: Sanders David 
Published: October 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop an electronic solution to effectively lock swivelling wheel steering positions to driver‐control. Simple and affordable systems are described to assist forklift users in steering their walkie type forklifts or pallet jacks across sloping ground.Design/methodology/approachA rolling road was created as an assessment tool and trials with both the test bed and in real situations were conducted to evaluate the new systems. The small swivel detector that was created could be successfully attached to swivelling wheel swivel bearings.FindingsThe new system was successful, robust and was not affected by changeable parameters. The simple systems assisted hand truck operators in steering their forklifts across sloping ground without veering off course. The systems overcame the problems associated with forklifts that steer using two swivelling wheels and meant that less work was required from hand truck operators as their forklifts tended to travel in the desired directionResearch limitations/implicationsExperiments demonstrated that calibrating forklift controllers for straight‐line balance and optimizing motor‐compensation did not solve this problem. Instead, swivelling wheel angle was selected to provide feedback. At the point when veer is first detected, a forklift has already begun to alter course and the job of the correction system is to minimize this drift from the desired course.Practical implicationsThe forklifts and pallet jacks often steer by having swivelling wheels but problems with this configuration occur when a forklift is driven along sloping ground because they can swivel in the direction of the slope. Gravity then causes the forklift or pallet jack to start an unwanted turn or “veer” and the vehicle goes in an unintended direction. This situation is exacerbated for vehicles with switch controls, as switches cannot provide fine control to trim and compensate.Originality/valueEach year in the United States, over 100 employees are killed and 36,000 are seriously injured in accidents involving forklift trucks and pallet carriers. This is the second leading cause of occupational fatalities in “industrial” type workplaces. The research aims to make the use of this type of equipment safer and the systems can be attached to many standard forklifts and pallet jacks.
Registration based on Euclidean reconstruction and natural features tracking for augmented reality systems
Authors: Lijun Li , Tao Guan , Bo Ren , Xiaowen Yao , Cheng Wang 
Published: October 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose a novel registration method using Euclidean reconstruction and natural features tracking for AR‐based assembly guidance systems.Design/methodology/approachThe method operates in two steps: offline Euclidean reconstruction and online tracking. Offline stage involves obtaining the structure of scene using Euclidean reconstruction technique. The classification trees are constructed using affine transform for online initialization. In tracking, the classification‐based wide baseline matching strategy andTd,dtest are used to get a fast and accurate initialization for the first frame after which a modified optical flow tracker is used to fulfill the task of feature tracking in the real‐time video sequences. The four specified points are transferred to the current image to compute the registration matrix for augmentation.FindingsFirstly, Euclidean reconstruction was used instead of projective reconstruction to get the projections of predefined features. Compared with the six points needed in projective reconstruction‐based method, this method can run normally even when only four features are successfully tracked. Secondly, an adaptive strategy was proposed to adjust the classification trees using the tracked features in online stage by which one can initialize or reinitialize the system, even with large difference between the first and reference images.Originality/valueSome indoor and outdoor experiments are provided to validate the performance of the proposed method.
An inductive evaluation of a public library GLBT collection
Authors: Moss Eleanor 
Published: October 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate the overall quality of the Louisville Free Public Library's gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender collection.Design/methodology/approachThe study implements an inductive check‐list method. Where other check‐lists compare a list to the collection, ignoring the number of items which do not appear on the list, an inductive method takes a sample of the entire collection, and compares it with several evaluative lists, demonstrating what percentage of the collection is not considered “desirable” by common evaluative lists.FindingsThe results found that 31.9 percent of the LFPL's GLBT collection can be found in the evaluative lists used. Previous inductive evaluations suggest that this number indicates a quality core GLBT collection.Research limitations/implicationsA sample collection was chosen using GLBT‐related subject headings; however, evidence shows that a portion of the actual GLBT collection (perhaps as much as 37.5 percent) lack appropriate subject access control. This results in a potentially flawed sample.Practical implicationsThis study provides public librarians with a standard by which they can evaluate their GLBT collections and their library's attempt to meet the needs of a frequently underrepresented minority.Originality/valueVery few inductive evaluations have been published, and almost none has been published studying GLBT collections. The paper attempts to fill that gap, and provide a deeper standard by which GLBT collections can be evaluated.
Subject support in collection development: using the bibliometric tool
Authors: Hong Yeoh Kim , Kaur Kiran 
Published: October 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the publication output of Research in Higher Education for subject support in collection development in the light of growing interest in diversified domains of research in higher education.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a quantitative analysis of 202 articles published in Research in Higher Education from 2000 to 2005. It employs bibliometric analysis to investigate the publication distribution, authorship patterns, research collaborations among scholars, and citation analysis to profile surrogated information for higher education resource management.FindingsAnalysis of 40 issues of publications revealed a diversified usage pattern of bibliographic reference sources by contributing researchers, with a cumulative total of citations being 8,374. A positive trend in research collaboration of contributing authors, and a steady growth in the use of reference sources, periodicals and web documents in the citations signify the trend of scholarly communication of research works in the electronic age. Similar to other disciplines of research findings, journals and books were the most cited source materials for researchers discussed.Originality/valueThis paper serves as a window to understanding the scientific productivity of contributing scholars, specifically in the field of higher education. This may assist researchers' and stakeholders' collection management decisions, and provide a referencing source for library professionals and policy makers.
Perceptions and self‐assessment of university librarians regarding Collection Management (CM): a case study of Pakistan
Authors: Ameen Kanwal 
Published: October 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discover university librarians' perceptions regarding importance of various elements of CM, and self‐assessment about the status of CM in university libraries of Pakistan.Design/methodology/approachTo achieve the objectives of the study, the survey method was used with self‐completion questionnaires to collect data from throughout Pakistan. The questionnaire was sent to central libraries of 40 major accredited universities of Pakistan and 30 responses were obtained.FindingsIt was found that the university librarians are still not fully conversant with the changing scenario of CM in both theoretical and practical terms. It also appeared that the university librarians were not satisfied with the overall status of managing a collection in the majority of cases.Originality/valueThe paper is the first study on the overall status of collection management in Pakistan. It will invoke among professionals the need to learn and apply modern practices of collection management.
Consumer acceptance of internet banking: the influence of internet trust
Authors: Grabner‐Kräuter Sonja , Faullant Rita 
Published: October 2008

PurposeThis study seeks to investigate the role of internet trust as a specific form of technology trust in the context of internet banking. Furthermore, the integration of propensity to trust within the hierarchical structure of personality and its applicability to technological systems are investigated.Design/methodology/approachThe approach takes the form of an empirical study with 381 bank customers in Austria (adopters and non‐adopters) and the use of a basic model of the adoption of internet banking with structural equation modelling (SEM).FindingsThe results confirm the influence of internet trust on risk perception and consumer attitudes towards internet banking. Propensity to trust is a determinant not only for interpersonal relationships but also for trust in technological systems.Research limitations/implicationsThis is not a representative study. Future research is encouraged to systematically investigate further facets of the personality structure in trust and adoption research, as well as to test interaction effects of psychological determinants (from the study) and external stimuli (web site characteristics).Practical implicationsMaking the internet banking interface for the customer more attractive and easier to navigate is not enough to increase the adoption rate of internet banking. Trust‐creating activities to increase internet trust and to diminish perceived risk must be continuously pursued. Propensity to trust is an important determinant in the fruitfulness of these actions.Originality/valueThe paper presents the conceptualization of internet trust as a specific form of technology trust, and its pivotal role in the adoption process of internet banking, together with the extension of the propensity to trust concept to technological systems.
Re‐examining traditional service quality in an e‐banking era
Authors: Wong David H. , Rexha Nexhmi , Phau Ian 
Published: October 2008

PurposeThis paper aims to re‐examine the role of traditional service quality in an e‐banking environment by providing a review of how traditional service quality perceptions have evolved through the current and continuing stream of change in banking technology and the corresponding changes in the nature of how banks interact with their customers.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from a mail survey sent out to a commercially purchased mailing list of 2,500 business names and addresses. The overall usable response rate was 30.6 per cent. Quadrant analysis was performed on the service quality dimensions from the SERVQUAL scale.FindingsWhile the importance ranking of the five SERVQUAL dimensions has not changed dramatically over the years, large discrepancies were found between customer expectations and their perceived performance of traditional banking services.Practical implicationsQuadrant analysis produced specific recommendations on how banks should prioritise the allocation of their resources to maintain high perceived service quality in their human interactions.Originality/valueThis is the first study which revisits and re‐examines traditional service quality in the e‐banking era. It highlights how high levels of traditional service quality may lead to increased customer trust and thus more successful cross‐selling of e‐banking products to customers.
Investor sentiment, mutual fund flows and its impact on returns and volatility
Authors: Beaumont Rob , van Daele Marco , Frijns Bart , Lehnert Thorsten , Muller Aline 
Published: October 2008

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of individual investor sentiment on the return process and conditional volatility of three main US market indices (Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P500 and Nasdaq100). Individual investor sentiment is measured by aggregate money flows in and out of domestically oriented US mutual funds.Design/methodology/approachA generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH)‐in‐mean specification is used, where our measure for individual sentiment enters the mean and conditional volatility equation.FindingsFor a sample period of six years (February 1998 until December 2004), we find that sentiment has a significant and asymmetric impact on volatility, increasing it more when sentiment is bearish. Using terminology of De Long et al., we find evidence for the “hold more” effect, which states that when noise traders hold more of the asset, they also see their returns increase, and the “create space” effect, which states that noise traders are rewarded for the additional risk they generate themselves.Originality/valueIn contrast to existing studies using explicit measures of market sentiment on low sampling frequencies, the use of daily mutual flow data offers a unique picture on investors' portfolio rebalancing and trading behavior. We propose an integrated framework that jointly tests for the effects of mutual fund flows on stock return and conditional volatility.