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Was Nyakeera my Father
(2014)
Eavesdropping on his parents, James Kirika, a fifteen-year-old teenager, hears a conversation that suggests that he is not the biological son of the man he calls 'Father'. This realisation sends him into a tortured search for the man who brought him into this world. Things get complicated when the chief source of information, his old and hallucinating grandmother, gives him a fuzzy lead. Does he ever find out the truth?
The colour-singlet axial-vector vertex plays a pivotal role in understanding dynamical chiral symmetry breaking and numerous hadronic weak interactions, yet scant model-independent information is available. We therefore use longitudinal and transverse Ward–Green–Takahashi (WGT) identities, together with kinematic constraints, in order to ameliorate this situation and expose novel features of the axial vertex: amongst them, Ward-like identities for elements in the transverse piece of the vertex, which complement and shed new light on identities determined previously for components in its longitudinal part. Such algebraic results are verified via solutions of the Bethe–Salpeter equation for the axial vertex obtained using two materially different kernels for the relevant Dyson–Schwinger equations. The solutions also provide insights that suggest a practical Ansatz for the axial-vector vertex.
Questions about how human-environment-relations can be conceptualized in a non-dualistic way have been intensively discussed throughout the last decades. The majority of the established realist and constructivist perspectives aim at explaining a given situation by analytically dissecting it. Unfortunately, such an interactionist perspective systematically reproduces the dualistic division between humans, environment and nature.
In contrast, this paper offers a transactive perspective origin in classical pragmatism and discusses its meta-theoretical consequences for human-environment-research. A transactionist perspective interprets the world as a flow of unique and entangled events. Instead of ontologically separating humans and environment, it advocates to look at their relations as being part of a "connatural world". Such a point of view raises new ethical and political questions for geographical human-environment research, argues for a renaissance of ideographic methodologies and hints to a fruitful unity of geographical inquiry.
How to write (international) legal histories that would be true to their protagonists while simultaneously relevant to present audiences? Most of us would also want to write "critically" – that is to say, at least by aiming to avoid Eurocentrism, hagiography and commitment to an altogether old-fashioned view of international law as an instrument of progress. Hence we write today our histories "in context". But this cannot be all. Framing the relevant "context" is only possible by drawing upon more or less conscious jurisprudential and political preferences. Should attention be focused on academic debates, military power, class structures or assumptions about the longue durée? Such choices determine for us what we think of as relevant "contexts", and engage us as participants in large conversations about law and power that are not only about what once "was" but also what there will be in the future.
Background: Different parameters have been determined for prediction of treatment outcome in hepatitis c virus genotype 1 infected patients undergoing pegylated interferon, ribavirin combination therapy. Results on the importance of vitamin D levels are conflicting. In the present study, a comprehensive analysis of vitamin D levels before and during therapy together with single nucleotide polymorphisms involved in vitamin D metabolism in the context of other known treatment predictors has been performed.
Methods: In a well characterized prospective cohort of 398 genotype 1 infected patients treated with pegylated interferon-α and ribavirin for 24–72 weeks (INDIV-2 study) 25-OH-vitamin D levels and different single nucleotide polymorphisms were analyzed together with known biochemical parameters for a correlation with virologic treatment outcome.
Results: Fluctuations of more than 5 (10) ng/ml in 25-OH-vitamin D-levels have been observed in 66 (39) % of patients during the course of antiviral therapy and neither pretreatment nor under treatment 25-OH-vitamin D-levels were associated with treatment outcome. The DHCR7-TT-polymorphism within the 7-dehydrocholesterol-reductase showed a significant association (P = 0.031) to sustained viral response in univariate analysis. Among numerous further parameters analyzed we found that age (OR = 1.028, CI = 1.002–1.056, P = 0.035), cholesterol (OR = 0.983, CI = 0.975–0.991, P<0.001), ferritin (OR = 1.002, CI = 1.000–1.004, P = 0.033), gGT (OR = 1.467, CI = 1.073–2.006, P = 0.016) and IL28B-genotype (OR = 2.442, CI = 1.271–4.695, P = 0.007) constituted the strongest predictors of treatment response.
Conclusions: While 25-OH-vitamin D-levels levels show considerable variations during the long-lasting course of antiviral therapy they do not show any significant association to treatment outcome in genotype 1 infected patients.
Changes in vitamin D serum levels have been associated with inflammatory diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis (MS), atherosclerosis, or asthma. Genome- and transcriptome-wide studies indicate that vitamin D signaling modulates many inflammatory responses on several levels. This includes (i) the regulation of the expression of genes which generate pro-inflammatory mediators, such as cyclooxygenases or 5-lipoxygenase, (ii) the interference with transcription factors, such as NF-κB, which regulate the expression of inflammatory genes and (iii) the activation of signaling cascades, such as MAP kinases which mediate inflammatory responses. Vitamin D targets various tissues and cell types, a number of which belong to the immune system, such as monocytes/macrophages, dendritic cells (DCs) as well as B- and T cells, leading to individual responses of each cell type. One hallmark of these specific vitamin D effects is the cell-type specific regulation of genes involved in the regulation of inflammatory processes and the interplay between vitamin D signaling and other signaling cascades involved in inflammation. An important task in the near future will be the elucidation of the regulatory mechanisms that are involved in the regulation of inflammatory responses by vitamin D on the molecular level by the use of techniques such as chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), ChIP-seq, and FAIRE-seq.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is often accompanied by problems in social behaviour, which are sometimes similar to some symptoms of autism-spectrum disorders (ASD). However, neuronal mechanisms of ASD-like deficits in ADHD have rarely been studied. The processing of biological motion–recently discussed as a marker of social cognition–was found to be disrupted in ASD in several studies. Thus in the present study we tested if biological motion processing is disrupted in ADHD. We used 64-channel EEG and spatio-temporal source analysis to assess event-related potentials associated with human motion processing in 21 children and adolescents with ADHD and 21 matched typically developing controls. On the behavioural level, all subjects were able to differentiate between human and scrambled motion. But in response to both scrambled and biological motion, the N200 amplitude was decreased in subjects with ADHD. After a spatio-temporal dipole analysis, a human motion specific activation was observable in occipital-temporal regions with a reduced and more diffuse activation in ADHD subjects. These results point towards neuronal determined alterations in the processing of biological motion in ADHD.
The purpose of this book is to show that the possession cult of Vimbuza presents itself as an oral genre which is part and parcel of African Oral Literature. The ethnolinguistic study which we undertake will permit us to catch a glimpse of its whole complexity. The analysis has a bearing on four principal aspects. Historical developments: a certain number of facts concerning the birth of possession among the Tumbuka; possession: the study attempts to show how the cult articulates itself with its beliefs and the use of divination; the social role: analysis of social functions; the style: an analysis of the linguistic procedures which are characteristic of Vimbuza songs. The presence of rhetorical figures would confirm that we are talking about an oral literary genre.
From his first research there in 1959 until shortly before his death in 2010, Victor Le Vine was a major Cameroon scholar. What he wrote during Cameroon's first half-century of independence carries implications for the years ahead. This volume introduces and presents eight of his short writings, 1961-2007, five never previously published. They demonstrate his mastery of the intricacies and the sweep of the country's governance history, and both his own and Cameroon's importance for African Studies at large.
The implications of delegating fiscal decision making power to sub-national governments has become an area of significant interest over the past two decades, in the expectation that these reforms will lead to better and more efficient provision of public goods and services. The move towards decentralization has, however, not been homogeneously implemented on the revenue and expenditure side: decentralization has materialized more substantially on the latter than on the former, creating "vertical fiscal imbalances". These imbalances measure the extent to which sub-national governments’ expenditures are financed through their own revenues. This mismatch between own revenues and expenditures may have negative consequences for public finances performance, for example by softening the budget constraint of sub-national governments. Using a large sample of countries covering a long time period from the IMF’s Government Finance Statistics Yearbook, this paper is the first to examine the effects of vertical fiscal imbalances on fiscal performance through the accumulation of government debt. Our findings suggest that vertical fiscal imbalances are indeed relevant in explaining government debt accumulation, and call for a degree of caution when promoting fiscal decentralization.
Vegetation of Little Bora Nature Conservation Trust Agreement, North Western Slopes, New South Wales
(2014)
The vegetation of the Little Bora Nature Conservation Trust Agreement property (560 ha in area), 8 km south east of Bingara (lat 29° 55’S long 150° 37’) in the Gwydir Shire and within the Nandewar Bioregion is described. Eight vegetation communities are defined based on flexible UPGMA analysis of cover-abundance scores of all vascular plant taxa. These communities are mapped based on ground truthing, ADS40 imagery interpretation, topography and substrate. Communities described are: 1) Melaleuca bracteata – Eucalyptus melanophloia – Eucalyptus camaldulensis Woodland, 2) Callitris glaucophylla – Eucalyptus melanophloia – Eucalyptus albens Woodland, 3) Callitris glaucophylla – Eucalyptus melanophloia – Brachychiton populneus Woodland, 4) Eucalyptus albens Woodland, 5) Eucalyptus caleyi – Eucalyptus albens – Callitris glaucophylla Woodland, 6) Callitris glaucophylla – Eucalyptus melanophloia – Eucalyptus albens Woodland, 7) Austrostipa verticillata – Austrostipa scabra Derived Grassland, 8) Eucalyptus melliodora – Eucalyptus dealbata Woodland. A total of 232 vascular plant taxa were found of which 14% were considered exotic in origin. 66 ha of listed threatened communities were mapped along with populations of a currently listed Extinct plant (TSC Act) Dodonaea stenophylla.
Natural vegetation of freely draining beach sand ridges in the valley of the Upper Myall River on the lower North Coast of NSW is sclerophyllous open forest or woodland. Based on previous experience on the nearby Eurunderee area, the vegetation on the sand ridges was classified into three types. These were mapped using aerial photographs and field observation. In transects, each 50 m long, the presence of species was scored in 10, 5 X 5 m quadrats. 48 such transects were used sampling all three types of vegetation on the sand ridges and also vegetation in periodically waterlogged sites adjacent to the ridges. Data from the transects, subjected to an ordination using principal components analysis, revealed clear separation between vegetation of the ridges and that of periodically waterlogged sites. In the ordination, vegetation of the ridges formed a continuum with the three types occupying characteristic parts of the continuum, reflecting their respective distributions on sands with different geomorphological histories. The most grassy, tallest forest, termed Dry Sclerophyll Forest (DSF) is on sands either recently disturbed or deposited (Holocene) or closely overlying other substrates. Banksia serrata occurs in DSF. The least grassy, most sclerophyllous, lowest forest or woodland, termed Dry Heath Forest (DHF), occurs on sands apparently little disturbed since they were laid down in the Pleistocene. Banksia aemula occurs in DHF. An intermediate forest, in which Banksia aemula and Banksia serrata occur together, Intermediate Dry Forest (IDF), is most widely found on the sand mass close to Bombah Broadwater. This sand is postulated to have been reworked during the last Glacial Period. In short, the vegetation of these sand ridges largely varies with time since they were laid down or last disturbed in a major way. Preliminary observations indicate the degree of podsolization of their soils is similarly related to this variation in time.
A newly discovered population of Xystocheir brachymacris Shelley, 1996 (Polydesmida: Xystodesmidae: Xystocheirini), in Placer County (Co.), California, exhibits an unusual grayish-black color dorsally with mottled, ovoid patches at paranotal bases; it cons titutes northern generic and specifi c range extensions of ~28.4 km (17.6 mi). The gonopods differ from those in the El Dorado Co. population in having shorter/acuminate prefemoral processes and blade-like, rather than spatulate, processes “B” that angle away from the solenomere instead of overhanging it. Additionally, a strong distomedial prefemoral lobe, absent from the El Dorado population, arises from the stem in Placer Co. males. Authorship of Xystocheirini is properly attributed to Hoffman, 1980.
One of the most challenging aspects of RT-qPCR data analysis is the identification of reliable reference genes. Ideally, they should be neither induced nor repressed under different experimental conditions. To date, few reference genes have been adequately studied for sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) using statistical approaches. In this work, six candidate genes (αTUB, GAPDH, H1, SAMDC, UBQ, and 25S rRNA) were tested for gene expression normalization of sugarcane root tissues from drought-tolerant and -sensitive accessions after continuous dehydration (24 h). By undergoing different approaches (GeNorm, NormFinder, and BestKeeper), it was shown that most of them could be used in combinations for normalization purposes, with the exception of SAMDC. Nevertheless three of them (H1, αTUB, and GAPDH) were considered the most reliable reference genes. Their suitability as reference genes validated the expression profiles of two targets (AS and PFPα1), related to SuperSAGE unitags, in agreement with results revealed by previous in silico analysis. The other two sugarcane unitags (ACC oxidase and PIP1-1), after salt stress (100 mM NaCl), presented their expressions validated in the same way. In conclusion, these reference genes will be useful for dissecting gene expression in sugarcane roots under abiotic stress, especially in transcriptomic studies using SuperSAGE or RNAseq approaches.
Knowledge about useful plants and their various applications in West Africa is scattered over many publications and often in form of grey literature difficult to access. Several online-databases compile large scale information from these sources and provide comprehensive summarized descriptions of plant usages. Our aim is to additionally build up a database (UseDa) for primary ethnobotanical interview data. Thus, quantitative data can be extracted and synthesized and data sets can be treated according to different research questions analyzing for example uses in specific areas, of different ethnic groups or user groups, which is essential for practical applications on a local level. In this article we give an overview on the technical structure and the content of the database and discuss at the end the possible output for practical application. The database was set up in the frame of the EU-funded Project UNDESERT.
Use of drug-eluting balloon coronary intervention prior to living donor kidney transplantation
(2014)
Background: Kidney transplantation is the gold standard of therapy in patients with terminal renal insufficiency. Living donor transplantation is a well-established option in this field. Enlarging the donor's pool implicates the acceptance of an increased rate of comorbidities. Among them, coronary artery disease is a growing problem. An increasing number of patients, undergoing living donation, receive antiplatelet therapies due to coronary disease.
Case presentation: Here we report about the perioperative treatment with a drug-eluting balloon in a patient with major cardiac risk factors who underwent kidney transplantation.
Conclusion: At the current time no recommendation can be given for the routine use of drug-eluting balloons.
The disintegrin and metalloproteinases ADAM10 and ADAM17 are regarded as the most important α-secretases involved in the physiological processing of amyloid precursor protein (APP) in brain. Since it has been suggested that processing of APP by α-secretases could be involved in the reorganization of the brain following injury, we studied mRNA expression of the two α-secretases Adam10 and Adam17, the ß-secretase Bace1, and the App-gene family (App, Aplp1, Aplp2) in the dentate gyrus of the mouse following entorhinal denervation. Using laser microdissection, tissue was harvested from the outer molecular layer and the granule cell layer of the denervated dentate gyrus. Expression levels of candidate genes were assessed using Affymetrix GeneChip Mouse Gene 1.0 ST arrays and reverse transcription-quantitative PCR, revealing an upregulation of Adam10 mRNA and Adam17 mRNA in the denervated outer molecular layer and an upregulation of Adam10 mRNA and App mRNA in the dentate granule cell layer. Immunolabeling for ADAM10 or ADAM17 in combination with markers for astro- and microglia revealed an increased labeling of ADAM10 and ADAM17 in the denervated outer molecular layer that was associated with reactive astrocytes but not with microglia. Collectively, these data show that denervation affects the expression level of APP and its two most important α-secretases. This suggests that APP-processing could be shifted towards the non-amyloidogenic pathway in denervated areas of the brain and, thus, towards the formation of neuroprotective APP cleavage products, such as APPsα.
Pinnaspis chamaecyparidis Takagi, Pinnaspis hikosana Takagi and Pinnaspis uniloba (Kuwana), occurring on Chamaecyparis obtusa Endl., Styrax japonica S. et Z. and Cleyera japonica Thunb. are newly documented in the Korean fauna of armored scales (Diaspididae). The characters of these species are here redescribed with illustrative photographs and information on distribution and hosts along with a dichotomous key to the species of Pinnaspis for correct species identifi cation. In addition, the paper discusses the current status of Pinnaspis buxi (Bouché) and Pinnaspis strachani (Cooley) which are known as native armored scale insects of Korea by analyzing information on the result of the survey.
The study of the Portuguese marine ichthyofauna has a long historical tradition, rooted back in the 18th Century. Here we present an annotated checklist of the marine fishes from Portuguese waters, including the area encompassed by the proposed extension of the Portuguese continental shelf and the Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ). The list is based on historical literature records and taxon occurrence data obtained from natural history collections, together with new revisions and occurrences. It comprises a total of 1191 species, distributed among 3 superclasses, 4 classes, 42 orders, 212 families and 617 genera. If considering only the EEZ and present territorial waters, this list represents an increase of 230 species (27.8%) and of 238 species (29.0%), when compared to the information available in FishBase (2012) and in the last checklist of marine and estuarine fishes of Portugal (1993), respectively. The order Perciformes shows the highest diversity, with 54 families, 162 genera and 299 species. Stomiidae (80 species), Myctophidae (71 species) and Macrouridae (37 species) are the richest families. From the listed species, 734 are present off mainland Portugal, 857 off the Azores and 766 off Madeira. Within the limits of the examined area, three species are reported for the first time in mainland Portugal and twenty-nine records are identified as doubtful. A total of 133 species have been recorded from the extended Portuguese continental shelf (2 off mainland Portugal, 117 off the Azores and 14 off Madeira), two of which are common to the Azores and Madeira extensions. Biogeographically, the Atlantic group is the most important (548 species – 46.01%), followed by the Lusitanian group (256 species – 21.49%), the African group (71 species – 5.96%), the Boreal group (34 species – 2.85%), the Mediterranean group (31 species – 2.60%), the Macaronesian group (21 species – 1.76%), the Atlantic/African group (19 species – 1.60%) and the Mediterranean/African and the Arctic groups, each with only 1 species (0.08%). Regarding the preferences for vertical habitat, the demersal fishes are the most important group (305 species – 25.61%), followed by the mesopelagic group (228 species – 19.14%), the bathypelagic group (164 species – 13.77%), the benthopelagic group (147 species – 12.34%), the bathydemersal group (115 species – 9.66%), the reef-associated group (88 species – 7.39%), the pelagic group (74 species – 6.21%), the epipelagic group (58 species – 4.87%) and 1 species (0.08%) of the benthic group. The oceanic habitat is the best represented group comprising 446 species (37.45%), followed by the shelf group (199 species – 16.71%), the slope group (164 species – 13.77%), the inner shelf group (89 species – 7.47%), the coastal group (70 species – 5.88%), the outer shelf group (29 species – 2.43%) and the oceanic/shelf group (7 species – 0.59%).
Cross-frequency coupling (CFC) has been proposed to coordinate neural dynamics across spatial and temporal scales. Despite its potential relevance for understanding healthy and pathological brain function, the standard CFC analysis and physiological interpretation come with fundamental problems. For example, apparent CFC can appear because of spectral correlations due to common non-stationarities that may arise in the total absence of interactions between neural frequency components. To provide a road map towards an improved mechanistic understanding of CFC, we organize the available and potential novel statistical/modeling approaches according to their biophysical interpretability. While we do not provide solutions for all the problems described, we provide a list of practical recommendations to avoid common errors and to enhance the interpretability of CFC analysis.