bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Sex-Dependent Susceptibility toListeria monocytogenesInfection Is Mediated by Differential Interleukin-10 Production
Authors: Pasche Bastian , Kalaydjiev Svetoslav , Franz Tobias J. , Kremmer Elisabeth , Gailus-Durner Valérie , Fuchs Helmut , Hrabé de Angelis Martin , Lengeling Andreas , Busch Dirk H. 
Published: August 2005

ABSTRACTIt is well documented that sex-dependent factors affect susceptibility to infection, with most mouse models demonstrating higher resistance in females. We made the unexpected observation that infection with the intracellular bacteriumListeria monocytogenesshowed an opposite pattern in several commonly used inbred mouse strains: female C57BL/6J, BALB/c, C3H/HeN, and CBA/J mice were significantly more susceptible toListeriainfection. The pronounced sensitivity of females toListeria, which was revealed by significantly higher lethality rates, correlated also with increased bacterial numbers in organ tissues (spleen and liver) and several immunological changes in peripheral blood samples. Surprisingly, increased severity of infection in females was associated with elevated interleukin-10 (IL-10) levels in plasma. Experiments usingIl10knockout mice, for which no differences between the susceptibilities of males and females toListeriainfection could be detected, confirmed the important role of this immunosuppressive cytokine for the outcome of disease. Our findings are likely to have clinical relevance, since similar sex differences with regard to infection withListeria monocytogenesand other intracellular pathogens have been reported for humans.
Identification of Virulence Determinants for Endocarditis in
Streptococcus sanguinis
by Signature-Tagged Mutagenesis
Authors: Paik Sehmi , Senty Lauren , Das Sankar , Noe Jody C. , Munro Cindy L. , Kitten Todd 
Published: August 2005

ABSTRACT

Streptococcus sanguinis
is a gram-positive, facultative anaerobe and a normal inhabitant of the human oral cavity. It is also one of the most common agents of infective endocarditis, a serious endovascular infection. To identify virulence factors for infective endocarditis, signature-tagged mutagenesis (STM) was applied to the SK36 strain of
S. sanguinis
, whose genome is being sequenced. STM allows the large-scale creation, in vivo screening, and recovery of a series of mutants with altered virulence. Screening of 800 mutants by STM identified 38 putative avirulent and 5 putative hypervirulent mutants. Subsequent molecular analysis of a subset of these mutants identified genes encoding undecaprenol kinase, homoserine kinase, anaerobic ribonucleotide reductase, adenylosuccinate lyase, and a hypothetical protein. Virulence reductions ranging from 2-to 150-fold were confirmed by competitive index assays. One putatively hypervirulent strain with a transposon insertion in an intergenic region was identified, though increased virulence was not confirmed in competitive index assays. All mutants grew comparably to SK36 in aerobic broth culture except for the homoserine kinase mutant. Growth of this mutant was restored by the addition of threonine to the medium. Mutants containing an insertion or in-frame deletion in the anaerobic ribonucleotide reductase gene failed to grow under strictly anaerobic conditions. The results suggest that housekeeping functions such as cell wall synthesis, amino acid and nucleic acid synthesis, and the ability to survive under anaerobic conditions are important virulence factors in
S. sanguinis
endocarditis.
Therapeutic Efficacy of High-Dose Intravenous Immunoglobulin inMycobacterium tuberculosisInfection in Mice
Authors: Roy Eleanor , Stavropoulos Evangelos , Brennan John , Coade Stephen , Grigorieva Elena , Walker Barry , Dagg Belinda , Tascon Ricardo E. , Lowrie Douglas B. , Colston M. Joseph , Jolles Stephen 
Published: August 2005

ABSTRACTIntravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) is used to treat patients with primary antibody deficiencies and, at high doses, to treat a range of autoimmune and inflammatory disorders. With high-dose IVIg (hdIVIg), immunomodulatory mechanisms act on a range of cells, including T cells, B cells, and dendritic cells. Here, we demonstrate that the treatment ofM. tuberculosis-infected mice with a single cycle of hdIVIg resulted in substantially reduced bacterial loads in the spleen and lungs when administered at either an early or late stage of infection. Titration of the IVIg showed a clear dose-response effect. There was no reduction in bacterial load when mice were given equimolar doses of another human protein, human serum albumin, or maltose, the stabilizing agent in the IVIg preparation. HdIVIg in vitro had no inhibitory effect on the growth ofM. tuberculosisin murine bone marrow-derived macrophages. In addition, the effect of hdIVIg on bacterial loads was not observed in nude mice, suggesting the involvement of conventional T cells. Analysis of T cells infiltrating the lungs revealed only small increases in CD8+but not CD4+T-cell numbers in hdIVIg-treated mice. The mechanism of action of hdIVIg against tuberculosis in mice remains to be determined. Nevertheless, since hdIVIg is already widely used clinically, the magnitude and long duration of the therapeutic effect seen here suggest that IVIg, or components of it, may find ready application as an adjunct to therapy of human tuberculosis.
Horizontally Acquired Genes for Purine Salvage in
Borrelia
spp. Causing Relapsing Fever
Authors: Barbour Alan G. , Putteet-Driver Adrienne D. , Bunikis Jonas 
Published: August 2005

ABSTRACT

Unlike
Borrelia burgdorferi
, the relapsing fever agent
Borrelia hermsii
and the related
Borrelia miyamotoi
had
purA
and
purB
genes of the purine salvage pathway. These were located among the rRNA genes. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that these genes had a different evolutionary history than those of orthologs in other spirochetes.
Devotion and Domesticity: The Reconfiguration of Gender in Popular Christian Pamphlets from Ghana and Nigeria
Authors: Newell Stephanie 
Published: August 2005

AbstractDrawing upon interviews with readers in Ghana and Nigeria as well as a large number of locally published marriage guidance pamphlets, this article considers attitudes toward the printed word among Christian readers in West Africa. Gender is an especially significant category in West African 'how-to' books, particularly those produced by Pentecostal and evangelical authors. While the majority of male authors try to reinstate Pauline strictures on wifely submission in their writing, the female authors discussed in this article make use of biblical quotation alongside romantic discourse in order to reconfigure both men's and women's marital roles. In so doing, they construct marital utopias which reveal a great deal about the contradictions and paradoxes of contemporary Christian gender ideologies in West Africa.
Simultaneous Measurement of Ocean Winds and Waves with an Airborne Coherent Real Aperture Radar
Authors: Plant William J. , Keller William C. , Hayes Kenneth 
Published: August 2005

AbstractA coherent, X-band airborne radar has been developed to measure wind speed and direction simultaneously with directional wave spectra on the ocean. The coherent real aperture radar (CORAR) measures received power, mean Doppler shifts, and mean Doppler bandwidths from small-resolution cells on the ocean surface and converts them into measurements of winds and waves. The system operates with two sets of antennas, one rotating and one looking to the side of the airplane. The rotating antennas yield neutral wind vectors at a height of 10 m above the ocean surface using a scatterometer model function to relate measured cross sections to wind speed and direction. The side-looking antennas produce maps of normalized radar cross section and line-of-sight velocity from which directional ocean wave spectra may be obtained. Capabilities of CORAR for wind and wave measurement are illustrated using data taken during the Shoaling Waves Experiment (SHOWEX) sponsored by the Office of Naval Research. Wind vectors measured by CORAR agree well with those measured by nearby buoys. Directional wave spectra obtained by CORAR also agree with buoy measurements and illustrate that offshore winds can produce dominant waves at an angle to the wind vector that are in good agreement with the measurements. The best agreement is produced using the Joint North Sea Wave Project (JONSWAP) parameterizations of the development of wave height and period with fetch.
Infrared Interferometric Measurements of the Near-Surface Air Temperature over the Oceans
Authors: Minnett P. J. , Maillet K. A. , Hanafin J. A. , Osborne B. J. 
Published: August 2005

Abstract
The radiometric measurement of the marine air temperature using a Fourier transform infrared spectroradiometer is described. The measurements are taken by the Marine-Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (M-AERI) that has been deployed on many research ships in a wide range of conditions. This approach is inherently more accurate than conventional techniques and can be used to determine some of the error characteristics of the standard measurements. Examples are given from several cruises ranging from the Arctic to the equatorial Pacific Oceans. It is shown that the diurnal heating signal in radiometric air temperatures in the tropical Pacific can typically reach an amplitude of ∼15% of that measured by conventional sensors. Conventional data have long been recognized as being contaminated by direct solar heating and heat island effects of the ships or buoys on which they are mounted, but here this effect is quantified by comparisons with radiometric measurements.
Response Functions for Arbitrary Weight Functions and Data Distributions. Part I: Framework for Interpreting the Response Function
Authors: Askelson Mark A. , Straka Jerry M. 
Published: August 2005

Abstract
The response function is a commonly used measure of analysis scheme properties. Its use in the interpretation of analyses of real-valued data, however, is unnecessarily complicated by the structure of the standard form of the Fourier transform. Specifically, interpretation using this form of the Fourier transform requires knowledge of the relationship between Fourier transform values that are symmetric about the origin. Here, these relationships are used to simplify the application of the response function to the interpretation of analysis scheme properties.
In doing so, Fourier transforms are used because they can be applied to studying effects that both data sampling and weight functions have upon analyses. A complication arises, however, in the treatment of constant and sinusoidal input since they do not have Fourier transforms in the traditional sense. To handle these highly useful forms, distribution theory is used to generalize Fourier transform theory. This extension enables Fourier transform theory to handle both functions that have Fourier transforms in the traditional sense and functions that can be represented using Fourier series.
The key step in simplifying the use of the response function is the expression of the inverse Fourier transform in a magnitude and phase form, which involves folding the integration domain onto itself so that integration is performed over only half of the domain. Once this is accomplished, interpretation of the response function is in terms of amplitude and phase modulations, which indicate how amplitudes and phases of input waves are affected by an analysis scheme. This interpretation is quite elegant since its formulation in terms of properties of input waves results in a one-to-one input-to-output wave interpretation of analysis scheme effects.
Influences of a Winter Wheat Belt on the Evolution of the Boundary Layer
Authors: McPherson Renee A. , Stensrud David J. 
Published: August 2005

Abstract
Evidence exists that a large-scale alteration of land use by humans can cause changes in the climatology of the region. The largest-scale transformation is the substitution of native landscape by agricultural cropland. This modeling study examines the impact of a direct substitution of one type of grassland for another—in this case, the replacement of tallgrass prairie with winter wheat. The primary difference between these grasses is their growing season: native prairie grasses of the U.S. Great Plains are warm-season grasses whereas winter wheat is a cool-season grass.
Case study simulations were conducted for 27 March 2000 and 5 April 2000—days analyzed in previous observational studies. The simulations provided additional insight into the physical processes involved and changes that occurred throughout the depth of the planetary boundary layer. Results indicate the following: 1) with the proper adjustment of vegetation parameters, land-use type, fractional vegetation coverage, and soil moisture, the numerical simulations were able to capture the overall patterns measured near the surface across a growing wheat belt during benign springtime conditions in Oklahoma; 2) the impacts of the mesoscale belt of growing wheat included increased values of latent heat flux and decreased values of sensible heat flux over the wheat, increased values of atmospheric moisture near the surface above and downstream of the wheat, and a shallower planetary boundary layer (PBL) above and downstream of the wheat; 3) in the sheared environments that were examined, a shallower PBL that resulted from growing wheat (rather than natural vegetation) led to reduced entrainment of higher momentum air into the PBL and, thus, weaker winds within the PBL over and downwind from the growing wheat; 4) for the cases studied, gradients in sensible heat were insufficient to establish an unambiguous vegetation breeze or its corresponding mesoscale circulation; 5) the initialization of soil moisture within the root zone aided latent heat fluxes from growing vegetation; and 6) reasonable specification of land surface parameters was required for the correct simulation and prediction of surface heat fluxes and resulting boundary layer development.
The Process of Bricolage Between Mythic Societies and Global Modernity: Conversion to the Assembly of God Faith in Burkina Faso
Authors: Laurent Pierre-Joseph 
Published: August 2005

English The case of conversions in Assembly of God churches in Burkina Faso is typical of the identity tinkering which is now going on in West African societies. Through individual conversion experiences, this particular variant of Christianity ends up playing the role of the group that makes one leave one's original group. Conversion thus constitutes a break which allows one to dare to transgress normal boundaries. In the context of a modernity beset by unaccustomed fears and doubts, religious allegiances often prove to be complex acts of identity bricolage,1 which even involve a second level of construction, that of an identity which is specifically constructed to defend me against another who is persecuting me. French Les conversions aux Assemblées de Dieu du Burkina Faso sont emblématiques du bricolage identitaire en train de se faire dans les sociétés d'Afrique de l'Ouest. A travers ces expériences de conversion individuelle, cette forme particuliè re de christianisme joue le rôle de groupe de la sortie du groupe coutumier. La conversion constitue ainsi une rupture permettant d'oser transgresser. En contexte de modernité insécurisée, les appartenances religieuses s'avèrent dès lors des bricolages complexes, révélant en creux un second niveau de bricolage, celui d'une identité fac¸ onnée pour se préserver d'une autre perc¸ ue comme persécutrice.
A Review of Toward a Pneumatological Theology: Pentecostal and Ecumenical Perspectives on Ecclesiology Soteriology and Theology of Mission by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen
Authors: Clarke Clifton 
Published: August 2005

AbstractToward a Pneumatological Theology by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen is an insightful investigation into the possibility of a truly ecumenical and conciliar pneumatic theology. Kärkkäinen develops his reflection on a pneumatological theology in critical dialogue with Pentecostal and Catholic traditions, drawing upon and expanding the theological insights that have emanated from the various Quinqueniums of the Catholic-Pentecostal dialogue. This review applauds Kärkkäinen’s effort of bringing together historical and theological traditions as far apart as Pentecostal and Catholic in search of a greater ecumenical understanding of God the Holy Spirit. The review, however, warns of the dangers of oversimplification and false dichotomizing, when considering such complex and pluriform traditions.
Adrenocorticotropic Hormone-Mediated Signaling Cascades Coordinate a Cyclic Pattern of Steroidogenic Factor 1-Dependent Transcriptional Activation
Authors: Winnay Jonathon N. , Hammer Gary D. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractSteroidogenic factor 1 (SF-1) is an orphan nuclear receptor that has emerged as a critical mediator of endocrine function at multiple levels of the hypothalamic-pituitary-steroidogenic axis. Within the adrenal cortex, ACTH-dependent transcriptional responses, including transcriptional activation of several key steroidogenic enzymes within the steroid biosynthetic pathway, are largely dependent upon SF-1 action. The absence of a bona fide endogenous eukaryotic ligand for SF-1 suggests that signaling pathway activation downstream of the melanocortin 2 receptor (Mc2r) modulates this transcriptional response. We have used the chromatin immunoprecipitation assay to examine the temporal formation of ACTH-dependent transcription complexes on the Mc2r gene promoter. In parallel, ACTH-dependent signaling events were examined in an attempt to correlate transcriptional events with the upstream activation of signaling pathways. Our results demonstrate that ACTH-dependent signaling cascades modulate the temporal dynamics of SF-1-dependent complex assembly on the Mc2r promoter. Strikingly, the pattern of SF-1 recruitment and the subsequent attainment of active rounds of transcription support a kinetic model of SF-1 transcriptional activation, a model originally established in the context of ligand-dependent transcription by several classical nuclear hormone receptors. An assessment of the major ACTH-dependent signaling pathways highlights pivotal roles for the MAPK as well as the cAMP-dependent protein kinase A pathway in the entrainment of SF-1-mediated transcriptional events. In addition, the current study demonstrates that specific enzymatic activities are capable of regulating distinct facets of a highly ordered transcriptional response.
Detection of brain injury by fatty acid-binding proteins
Authors: Pelsers Maurice M. A. L. , Glatz Jan F. C. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractThe rapid detection of brain injury (neuronal damage in general) is an important parameter in the management of cerebrovascular accidents, especially in hemorrhagic and/or ischemic events. Two types of 15-kDa cytoplasmic fatty acid-binding proteins (FABPs), brain-type FABP and heart-type FABP, have recently been postulated as novel markers for brain injury detection. Here we review the possible roles of these FABPs as rapid diagnostic markers for the detection of brain injury due to cerebrovascular accident, trauma or neurodegenerative diseases. The occurrence of brain- and heart-type FABPs in segments of the human brain is also described. Although only limited amounts of data are available, brain- and heart-type FABPs show higher sensitivities and specificities than protein S100 and neuron specific enolase in the rapid detection of brain injury in stroke, trauma and neurodegenerative diseases.
Detection of an unexpected subtelomeric 15q26.2 → qter deletion in a little girl: Clinical and cytogenetic studies
Authors: Pinson L. , Perrin A. , Plouzennec C. , Parent P. , Metz C. , Collet M. , Le Bris M.J. , Douet‐Guilbert N. , Morel F. , De Braekeleer M. 
Published: August 2005

AbstractUnlike the small proximal 15q deletions causing Prader‐Willi and/or Angelman syndrome, distal deletions of the terminal long arm of chromosome 15 have rarely been described. To the best of our knowledge, only four patients with a pure terminal 15q deletion have been documented in the literature. We report here on an unexpected abnormal hybridization pattern for the 15q specific subtelomeric control probe (clone 154P1) of the commercial SNRPN probe in a girl referred for suspicion of Angelman syndrome. Investigation by fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) using bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones defined a partial monosomy 15q26.2 → 15qter for a minimal critical region of approximately 5.7 Mb, which is the most distal de novo 15qter deletion reported to date. All the de novo 15qter deletion cases, including ours, presented with pre‐ and post‐natal growth retardation related to the loss of one copy of the IGF1R gene. Based on the comparaison with the previous published cases and owing to the clinical phenotype of our patient, we define a new subtelomeric 15qter syndrome which would be characterized by intrauterine growth retardation and global post‐natal growth failure, variable mental retardation, facial anomalies including relative micrognathia and triangular facies and minor malformations of the extremities including proximally placed thumbs, cubitus valgus, and brachydactyly with tappering of the digits. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Sexual dimorphism in metapodial and phalanges length ratios in the wood mouse
Authors: Leoni Barbara , Canova Luca , Saino Nicola 
Published: August 2005

AbstractRelative length of metapodials and digits is sexually dimorphic in most primates and one rodent and one bird species studied so far. Recently, interest in digit ratios has increased because of their correlation with diverse physiological, psychological, and performance traits in humans. These correlations may reflect the effect of androgens during early ontogeny on digit development and their long‐term organizational effects on extragenital organs. Inter‐ and intrasexual variation in digit ratios may be ultimately controlled by modulation of the expression of Hoxa and Hoxd genes. Since Hox genes are conserved in vertebrates, similar patterns of sex‐related variation in length ratios may be expected across taxa. In fact, sexual dimorphism in length ratios has been documented for metapodials or digit bones in nonhuman vertebrates, but the specific pattern of sex‐related variation varies considerably. However, no study has investigated sexual dimorphism in length ratios between all ray segments (metapodials plus phalanges) using osteometrical measures. In an outbred wild population of wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus), we found extensive sex‐related variation in ratios between osteometrical length of the phalanges, but not metatarsals, similar to that recorded on undissected digits of humans and laboratory mice. Most sexually dimorphic ratios involved the second digit. We found very weak evidence for directional asymmetry in length ratios. The present study shows that sex‐related variation in length ratios between digit segments observed in mammals may actually depend on relative bone length. Hence, other species may be used to investigate the causal and semeiotic implications of variation in human digit ratios. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.