bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Identification of Permian palaeowind direction from wave‐dominated lacustrine sediments (Lodève Basin, France)
Authors: POCHAT STÉPHANE , DRIESSCHE JEAN VAN DEN , MOUTON VALÉRIE , GUILLOCHEAU FRANÇOIS 
Published: July 2005

AbstractLacustrine environments are an excellent indicator of continental palaeoclimate. In particular, the sedimentary record of waves in lakes may be used to constrain atmospheric palaeocirculation. Wave ripples have been identified in a Permian lacustrine basin (the Salagou Formation, 260–250 Ma, Lodève Basin) located in the southern French Massif Central, part of the western European Hercynian mountain chain. Wave ripple patterns are interpreted with regards to hydrodynamics and water palaeodepth. It is shown that, in the case of the Salagou Formation, wave ripple orientations were controlled by the direction of the prevailing palaeowind. The Late Permian wind blew from between north and 20° east of north, possibly over several millions of years and certainly throughout the period of deposition of about 2000 m of strata in the Lodève Basin. Permian lacustrine sedimentation is widespread and well preserved on the Earth's surface and so wave ripple data may help constrain numerical modelling of the Earth's past climates, especially with regards to Permian times outside of desert regions.
Effects of calculation procedure and sampling site on trap method estimates of sediment resuspension in a shallow lake
Authors: HORPPILA JUKKA , NURMINEN LEENA 
Published: July 2005

AbstractResuspension estimates given by two different trap methods in a shallow lake were compared. The sensitivity of the methods to errors in estimates of gross sedimentation and organic fraction of trapped material was explored. The methods were label method, in which resuspension is estimated by determining the organic fraction of surface sediment, suspended seston and trapped material, and SPIM/SPM method, where the relationship between settling particulate inorganic matter (SPIM) and total settling particulate matter (SPM) is used. During the whole 111 day study period, according to the label method, at a sheltered station 1949 g m−2 dry weight of sediment was resuspended, whereas SPIM/SPM gave an estimate of 1815 g m−2. The difference in the estimates was probably due to mineralization loss of organic material in the traps during the two week exposure periods. Sensitivity analysis showed that of the two methods, the label method was more sensitive to variations in the organic content of trapped material. At a wind‐exposed station, the total amounts of resuspended matter given by the label method and by the SPIM/SPM method were 4966 g m−2 and 4971 g m−2, respectively. Due to wind effects, escape of trapped material took place, which caused underestimation of gross sedimentation and compensated the effects of mineralization loss to diminish the difference between the methods. Of the two methods, the SPIM/SPM method seems thus more suitable for lakes, where bacterial activity is high. If cyanobacterial blooms take place, the label method is probably more reliable, providing that the exposure time of sediment traps is kept adequately short.
Solution‐collapse breccias of the Minkinfjellet and Wordiekammen Formations, Central Spitsbergen, Svalbard: a large gypsum palaeokarst system
Authors: ELIASSEN ARILD , TALBOT MICHAEL R. 
Published: July 2005

AbstractLarge volumes of carbonate breccia occur in the late syn‐rift and early post‐rift deposits of the Billefjorden Trough, Central Spitsbergen. Breccias are developed throughout the Moscovian Minkinfjellet Formation and in basal parts of the Kazimovian Wordiekammen Formation. Breccias can be divided into two categories: (i) thick, cross‐cutting breccia‐bodies up to 200 m thick that are associated with breccia pipes and large V‐structures, and (ii) horizontal stratabound breccia beds interbedded with undeformed carbonate and siliciclastic rocks. The thick breccias occur in the central part of the basin, whereas the stratabound breccia beds have a much wider areal extent towards the basin margins. The breccias were formed by gravitational collapse into cavities formed by dissolution of gypsum and anhydrite beds in the Minkinfjellet Formation. Several dissolution fronts have been discovered, demonstrating the genetic relationship between dissolution of gypsum and brecciation. Textures and structures typical of collapse breccias such as inverse grading, a sharp flat base, breccia pipes (collapse dolines) and V‐structures (cave roof collapse) are also observed. The breccias are cemented by calcite cements of pre‐compaction, shallow burial origin. Primary fluid inclusions in the calcite are dominantly single phase containing fresh water (final melting points are ca 0 °C), suggesting that breccia diagenesis occurred in meteoric waters. Cathodoluminescence (CL) zoning of the cements shows a consistent pattern of three cement stages, but the abundance of each stage varies stratigraphically and laterally. δ18O values of breccia cements are more negative relative to marine limestones and meteoric cements developed in unbrecciated Minkinfjellet limestones. There is a clear relationship between δ18O values and the abundance of the different cement generations detected by CL. Paragenetically, later cements have lower δ18O values recording increased temperatures during their precipitation. Carbon isotope values of the cements are primarily rock‐buffered although a weak trend towards more negative values with increasing burial depth is observed. The timing of gypsum dissolution and brecciation was most likely related to major intervals of exposure of the carbonate platform during Gzhelian and/or Asselian/Sakmarian times. These intervals of exposure occurred shortly after deposition of the brecciated units and before deep burial of the sediments.
FHL is required for full phytochrome A signaling and shares overlapping functions with FHY1
Authors: Zhou Qingwen , Hare Peter D. , Yang Seong Wook , Zeidler Mathias , Huang Li‐Fang , Chua Nam‐Hai 
Published: July 2005

SummaryPhytochrome A (phyA) plays a primary role in initiating seedling de‐etiolation and is the only plant photoreceptor known to be activated by far‐red light (FR). The signaling intermediate FHY1 appears to either participate directly in relaying the phyA signal or to positively regulate a critical signaling event(s) downstream of phyA activation. Here we identify a homolog of FHY1 named FHL (FHY1‐like) as a novel signaling factor essential for complete responsiveness to phyA. FHL possesses functional nuclear localization and nuclear export signals. Lines in which FHL function was abolished by insertional mutagenesis or attenuated by RNAi‐mediated suppression displayed a weaker hyposensitivity to continuous FR than fhy1 null mutants and most reported phyA signaling mutants. However, hypocotyl elongation assays indicated that suppression of FHL expression in fhy1‐3 caused an insensitivity of hypocotyl elongation to FR and blue light (B) indistinguishable from that seen in phyA. Real‐time PCR indicates that in FR, FHY1 transcripts are approximately 15‐fold more abundant than FHL transcripts. Although both FHY1 and FHL are capable of homo‐ and hetero‐interaction via their C‐termini, the ability of FHL overexpression to restore wild‐type (WT) morphological and molecular phenotypes to fhy1‐3 seedlings suggests that the extreme insensitivity to FR associated with suppression of FHL expression in fhy1‐3 cannot be accounted for by a critical role for FHY1‐FHL heterodimers in phyA signal transmission. Rather, we suggest that the relative abundances of FHY1 and FHL in WT plants account for the differences in the severity of fhy1 and fhl mutations. As for FHY1, FHL transcript accumulation is dependent on FHY3 and is decreased after exposure to FR, R or B light. These findings reiterate the prevalence of partial degeneracy in plant signaling networks that regulate responses crucial to survival.
Soluble starch synthase I: a major determinant for the synthesis of amylopectin in Arabidopsis thaliana leaves
Authors: Delvallé David , Dumez Sylvain , Wattebled Fabrice , Roldán Isaac , Planchot Véronique , Berbezy Pierre , Colonna Paul , Vyas Darshna , Chatterjee Manash , Ball Steven , Mérida Ángel , D'Hulst Christophe 
Published: July 2005

SummaryA minimum of four soluble starch synthase families have been documented in all starch‐storing green plants. These activities are involved in amylopectin synthesis and are extremely well conserved throughout the plant kingdom. Mutants or transgenic plants defective for SSII and SSIII isoforms have been previously shown to have a large and specific impact on the synthesis of amylopectin while the function of the SSI type of enzymes has remained elusive. We report here that Arabidopsis mutants, lacking a plastidial starch synthase isoform belonging to the SSI family, display a major and novel type of structural alteration within their amylopectin. Comparative analysis of β‐limit dextrins for both wild type and mutant amylopectins suggests a specific and crucial function of SSI during the synthesis of transient starch in Arabidopsis leaves. Considering our own characterization of SSI activity and the previously described kinetic properties of maize SSI, our results suggest that the function of SSI is mainly involved in the synthesis of small outer chains during amylopectin cluster synthesis.
Longterm survival of transplanted human corneal epithelial cells and corneal stem cells
Authors: Egarth Maria , Hellkvist Josefine , Claesson Margareta , Hanson Charles , Stenevi Ulf 
Published: July 2005

Abstract.Purpose:  To investigate the survival of donor‐derived epithelial cells in conventional penetrating keratoplasty (PKP) and in homologous penetrating central limbal keratoplasty (HPCLK). Methods and Patients:  Epithelial cells from 26 eyes of 26 patients were analysed. All cases were sex‐mismatched (i.e. the transplant and patient were of different genders). At suture removal more than 1 year post surgery, epithelial cells were obtained by gently wiping the removed sutures on glass slides. The cell samples were analysed using fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) of the sex chromosomes. This technique makes it possible to allocate the origin of each cell nucleus to either the donor or the recipient. Results:  All 19 conventional PKPs were clear and seven had donor‐derived epithelial cells at suture removal. Five of the seven HPCLK grafts were clear at the time of investigation (365–1355 days post surgery), and donor‐derived epithelial cells were found in two grafts. Conclusion:  Harvesting cells from removed sutures in combination with FISH enables the clinical study of cell survival in corneal transplants without jeopardizing functioning grafts. From the limited sample investigated, the following tentative conclusions can be made. Donor‐derived epithelial cells can remain in conventional PKP for over 1 year. In combined stem cell and corneal grafts (HPCLK), donor‐derived epithelial cells may also be retrieved at 1 year or beyond following surgery but the correlation between their presence and a remaining clear graft is uncertain.
Portable ophthalmic microscopes in the Philippines: an overview
Authors: Tan Anna , Fraser Clay , Staples Brian , Mesurier Richard L , Newland Henry 
Published: July 2005

AbstractBackground:  Demonstrations were held all over the Philippines to teach local microscope operators basic maintenance skills and troubleshooting for their portable microscopes.Methods:  Fifteen microscopes were examined and feedback was obtained from 16 microscope operators. The different parameters of the microscope were evaluated as follows: (i) user‐friendliness, (ii) demand and availability of technical services and spare parts, (iii) portability and (iv) frequent problems encountered. Some suggestions for improvement are proposed.Results:  There was a general satisfaction among the operators with their microscopes; however, there was a lack of technical support services. Most microscopes were portable and the original casing was adequate for transport. Even though most microscopes were functioning, their quality could be improved with maintenance. The three most common problems identified were: mouldy/dirty lenses, expired mould pellets and poor alignment.Conclusions:  The portable operating ophthalmic microscope has an important role in the prevention of international blindness. The archaic attitude of sending microscopes to professional technicians for simple maintenance and repair should be abandoned. Instead demonstrations aimed at teaching these skills to local operators and surgeons should be held, in order to improve the technical support available. Different microscope operators can help provide microscope designers with feedback for future improvements. Similar demonstrations could be considered for other countries with a similar scarcity of technical support services.
The role of anterior cingulate cortex and precuneus in the coordination of motor behaviour
Authors: Wenderoth Nicole , Debaere Filiep , Sunaert Stefan , Swinnen Stephan P. 
Published: July 2005

AbstractBehavioral studies in humans have shown that bimanual coordination imposes specific demands on the central nervous system that exceed unimanual task control. In the present study we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural correlate of this additional coordination effort, i.e. regions responding more strongly to bimanual movements than inferred from summing up the responses to the unimanual subtasks. Subjects were scanned while performing movements along different directions, either uni‐ or bimanually. During the bimanual condition, trajectories of movement of the left and right hand were spatially incompatible, such that additional effort was required to break away from intrinsically favored mirror‐movements and to integrate movements of both limbs into a new spatial pattern. Our main finding was that the execution of spatially complex bimanual coordination as compared with the unimanual subtasks activated the anterior cingulate cortex (posterior part) as well as the dorso‐anterior precuneus. We hypothesize that the anterior cingulate exerts its modulatory effect on other motor areas, such as the primary motor cortex and the supplementary motor area, in order to suppress intrinsically favored coordination tendencies. Conversely, the precuneus is likely to be involved in shifting attention between different locations in space, which was necessary for monitoring the trajectories of the left and right wrist when both limbs moved in parallel. Our findings suggest that the coordination effort during bimanual and perhaps other modes of coordinated behavior is mediated by regions contributing to higher order functions, which form an interface between cognition and action.
Effects of attention and arousal on early responses in striate cortex
Authors: Poghosyan Vahe , Shibata Tadahiko , Ioannides Andreas A. 
Published: July 2005

AbstractHumans employ attention to facilitate perception of relevant stimuli. Visual attention can bias the selection of a location in the visual field, a whole visual object or any visual feature of an object. Attention draws on both current behavioral goals and/or the saliency of physical attributes of a stimulus, and it influences activity of different brain regions at different latencies. Attentional effect in the striate and extrastriate cortices has been the subject of intense research interest in many recent studies. The consensus emerging from them places the first attentional effects in extrastriate areas, which in turn modulate activity of V1 at later latencies. In this view attention influences activity in striate cortex some 150 ms after stimulus onset. Here we use magnetoencephalography to compare brain responses to foveally presented identical stimuli under the conditions of passive viewing, when the stimuli are irrelevant to the subject and under an active GO/NOGO task, when the stimuli are cues instructing the subject to make or inhibit movement of his/her left or right index finger. The earliest striate activity was identified 40–45 ms after stimulus onset, and it was identical in passive and active conditions. Later striate response starting at about 70 ms and reaching a peak at about 100 ms showed a strong attentional modulation. Even before the striate cortex, activity of the right inferior parietal lobule was modulated by attention, suggesting this region as a candidate for mediating attentional signals to the striate cortex.
Nursing and nursing education in Iraq: challenges and opportunities
Authors: Garfield R. , McCarthy C. F. 
Published: July 2005

Background:  There has been extensive damage to nursing education and training in Iraq over the last two decades through three international wars, counterinsurgency struggles in the north and south, 13 years of economic sanctions, dictatorship and foreign occupation. Fortunately, there is wide agreement that nursing is a key area for further attention. Many nursing leaders have emigrated and the numbers of nurses working in professional roles in Iraq declined sharply after 1990.Issues:  The number of nurses per population has always been low in Iraq, and fell off precipitously after foreign workers left. There is less than one nursing staff of any kind for physician today. Few of the nursing staff are qualified to what would be minimal standards of professional practice in many countries. There is a strong educational base for nursing education in three Iraqi universities, but it relates little to other schools or hospitals. Military nurses, now being integrated into the public system of hospital care, are considered to have far more technical skill levels than non‐military nurses.Actions:  Iraq needs a new generation of well trained nurses to develop primary care and health education activities. Programmes in nursing administration and community health nursing need to be developed. The World Health Organization has supported the development of training centres and short courses for nursing leaders. The former six levels of entry to nursing practice have been streamlined to three. Nursing salaries since the 2003 invasion have been greatly increased. These are good beginnings, and much more remains to be done to restore nursing in Iraq.
Clinical and instrumental evaluation of a food supplement in improving skin hydration
Authors: Primavera G , Berardesca E 
Published: July 2005

SynopsisTopically applied cosmetic products can be helpful in improving skin hydration. The study shows how oral supplementation could be helpful in improving and preventing the skin dehydration. A total of 32 healthy female volunteers entered the study. Of which, 16 were treated with a food supplement based on vegetable ceramides, amino acids, fish cartilage, antioxidants and essential fatty acids for 40 days and 16 with placebo. The results of the clinical and instrumental evaluations carried out in this study, have highlighted how the active treatment is effective in improving skin hydration and in reducing the cutaneous smoothness and roughness and the depth of furrows, in comparison to the placebo. In fact, concerning several important parameters, as stratum corneum hydration and skin roughness, the improvement measured exceeded 25%. We therefore suggest that a combination of treatments (oral and topical) can be more effective in improving skin hydration.
Elastic vesicles as topical/transdermal drug delivery systems
Authors: Choi M. J. , Maibach H. I. 
Published: July 2005

SynopsisSkin acts a major target as well as a principle barrier for topical/transdermal drug delivery. Despite the many advantages of this system, the major obstacle is the low diffusion rate of drugs across the stratum corneum. Several methods have been assessed to increase the permeation rate of drugs temporarily. One simple and convenient approach is application of drugs in formulation with elastic vesicles or skin enhancers. Elastic vesicles are classified with phospholipid (Transfersomes® and ethosomes) and detergent‐based types. Elastic vesicles were more efficient at delivering a low and high molecular weight drug to the skin in terms of quantity and depth. Their effectiveness strongly depends on their physicochemical properties: composition, duration and application volume, and entrapment efficiency and application methods. This review focuses on the effect of elastic liposomes for enhancing the drug penetration and defines the action mechanism of penetration into deeper skin.
A Multistate Approach for Estimating the Incidence of Human Immunodeficiency Virus by Using Data from a Prevalent Cohort Study
Authors: Alioum Ahmadou , Commenges Daniel , Thiébaut Rodolphe , Dabis François ,   Groupe d’Epidémiologie Clinique du Syndrome d’Immunodéficience Acquise en Aquitaine
Published: July 2005

SummaryCohort studies of individuals infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) provide useful information on the past pattern of HIV diagnoses, progression of the disease and use of antiretroviral therapy. We propose a new method for using individual data from an open prevalent cohort study to estimate the incidence of HIV, by jointly modelling the HIV diagnosis, the inclusion in the cohort and the progression of the disease in a Markov model framework. The estimation procedure involves the construction of a likelihood function which takes into account the probability of observing the total number of subjects who are enrolled in the cohort and the probabilities of passage through the stages of disease for each observed subject conditionally on being included in the cohort. The estimator of the HIV infection rate is defined as the function which maximizes a penalized likelihood, and the solution of this maximization problem is approximated on a basis of cubic M-splines. The method is illustrated by using cohort data from a hospital-based surveillance system of HIV infection in Aquitaine, a region of south-western France. A simulation study is performed to study the ability of the model to reconstruct the incidence of HIV from prevalent cohort data.
Differentiating Noisy Radiocommunications Signals: Wavelet Estimation of a Derivative in the Presence of Heteroscedastic Noise
Authors: Baxter Paul D. , Upton Graham J. G. 
Published: July 2005

SummaryRadio scientists require estimates of the rate of change in rain-induced signals. Unfortunately, these signals are observed in the presence of atmospheric noise, which has a variance that is dependent on temperature, pressure and other climatic variables. We develop a systematic approach to the problem, using wavelet differentiation combined with coefficient-dependent thresholding, and illustrate the considerable benefits that this provides over more conventional techniques.